


Starry, Starry Night

by BlessedAreTheFandoms



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Blind Character, Established Relationship, F/M, Hopeful Ending, Inspired by Fanfiction, Languages and Linguistics, M/M, Medical Trauma, Mental Breakdown, Miles is a good bro, Non-Sexual Intimacy, Panic Attacks, Past Brainwashing, Post-Canon, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Recovery, Richard Bashir's A+ Parenting, Suicide Attempt, Xenophobia, but I promise I don't write things that don't end well, y'all I'm not kidding this starts hella dark
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-04
Updated: 2021-03-07
Packaged: 2021-03-08 03:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 31
Words: 84,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26818558
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BlessedAreTheFandoms/pseuds/BlessedAreTheFandoms
Summary: After being taken apart by the Parallel Organization that believes xenophilia to be a defect in need of correction, Julian Bashir returns to Cardassia to his husbands Elim Garak and Kelas Parmak.  Being put back together, they find, is a much trickier process, and Julian has been told he is wrong so many times already.(Direct sequel to Cyrelia_J's "Dawn")
Relationships: Elim Garak/Kelas Parmak, Julian Bashir & Ezri Dax, Julian Bashir & Miles O'Brien, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak, Julian Bashir/Elim Garak/Kelas Parmak, Julian Bashir/Ezri Dax, Julian Bashir/Kelas Parmak, Julian Bashir/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 455
Kudos: 113





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Dawn](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15141128) by [Cyrelia_J](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cyrelia_J/pseuds/Cyrelia_J). 



> Cyrelia_J's tale (which you should at least skim so you understand what I'm doing) is dark and terrible and monstrous and sparse and powerful and will not let me go. They were so kind as to give me permission to play in that created universe. I can't imitate their beautiful weaving of language, so I've written essentially a book in response to their surreal scenes; I hope it fits the tale, if not the voice.
> 
> Title is from Don McLean's [Vincent](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxHnRfhDmrk), a beautiful and melancholy song that kept repeating while writing this.

It was the vacancy in Julian Bashir’s usually bright hazel eyes that truly undid Elim Garak. “Hello,” Julian was saying to the darkened room full of corpses, “My name is Julian Bashir. Today was a good day; today Garak came to visit me.”

Garak couldn’t help himself as he clung to Julian’s narrow frame and wept on his shirt collar while the human droned on about nothing, seeing nothing, feeling nothing. The relief at finding Julian alive after six months of searching was twisted out of recognition by the horror of what Garak had found: a Julian who was breathing but could only charitably be called alive.

Julian had stopped talking, apparently waiting for some new command. Garak could feel the rage boiling under his scales at what it must have taken to strip his beautifully vibrant husband to this shell. He almost wished he hadn’t already killed everyone he’d encountered so he could have the chance to rip them apart individually, to make the pain last.

Julian sat perfectly still, waiting. Garak had never seen him perfectly still before—some part of him was always moving, always ready for the next thing. Even in sleep, Julian stretched, curled, unfurled, wrapped himself around Garak’s midsection or entwined himself with Kelas’ legs.

Garak wiped his eyes and tapped his commlink lightly. “Kelas?”

“Oh, thank the gods!” Kelas Parmak’s voice came through, strained in relief. “Are you hurt?”

“I’m fine, Kelas. And I—” he faltered as he looked at Julian who looked at nothing with a patient and unreal smile. “I have Julian.”

A short sob transmitted over the line.

“Don’t come in,” Garak said quickly, surveying the red splashes oozing across the tile. Kelas should not see this. “I’m going to learn as much as I can about what they’ve been doing to him and then bring him out with me.”

“What they’ve been—Elim, is he okay?”

Garak looked at Julian, at the soaked collar he didn’t even seem to notice, at the blood covering his bare feet. “He’s alive, Kelas. Look, I’ll be out soon. _Don’t come in_.”

“Won’t you be discovered if you stay long?”

Garak shifted on his knees, felt the blood drying on his clothes. “No one will discover us,” he said.

There was a pause before Kelas responded, “I’ll stay here. Tell me when to transport you back.”

Garak ended the transmission and refocused on Julian who was still smiling that awful smile. He reached up to cup Julian’s face in his hand, the memory of the human’s bristled cheek suddenly achingly important.

The moment scale touched skin, Julian recoiled violently. “NO!” he shouted, standing so quickly he knocked back his chair. “Don’t touch me, _don’t touch me_ , don’t hurt me, please.” His body curled into itself, long arms wrapped tightly around his painfully thin torso.

Garak held his hands up in surrender. “I’m sorry, Julian, it’s okay. It’s okay. I won’t touch you.” The rage within him kicked up to molten fury. “It’s okay, Julian, you’re safe. I promise. You’re safe.”

The fear washed out of Julian like it had never existed as he straightened up and his face resumed its blankness. “Is the session over? I’d like to return to my room now and finish my puzzle. I promise I’ll take the new medications. Get better, be better.”

Garak stared before realizing Julian was truly awaiting an answer. “Yes, Julian,” he choked out, “you may.”

Julian nodded vacantly and turned. Garak stood to follow him, his knees protesting at the time spent on the hard tile. He couldn’t decide which was more painful as they walked—the ease of Julian’s movement along a path he had clearly walked many times before or the complete lack of the man’s awareness of his surroundings. The warning klaxons that screamed to no one did not bother him, nor did the blood now soaking into the hems of his hospital-like grey pants. How badly had they warped his mind that Julian Bashir, a man who had once nearly given up his best friend to try and help a band of rogue Jem’Hadar, did not bend to any of the bodies he stepped over to check for signs of life? Who was this husk that walked with head slightly bent and shoulders stooped?

They passed a room entirely of white and Garak slowed briefly to cast a glance inside, noting the single black window overlooking it like an eye. A lone chair sat turned away in the center, restraints dangling listlessly to the side. Wires snaked away from it to the wall and a single monitor hung above it. Garak began to feel nausea under his rage; some of the setup was familiar to him, frighteningly so. He pulled himself away from the room and hurried after Julian, who hadn’t slowed his pace at all. _What have they done to you?_ he wondered yet again.

Julian led them to a small room with a spare cot in it. Garak shivered from the cold within, blinking against the too-bright lights. A puzzle spread, half-finished, across the bare floor; Garak could make out swirls of yellow and white against a blue and black background, a single dark spire rising up the side to pierce the sky. “Julian?” he asked, wanting the man to actually _look_ at him.

“I’m working on it still,” Julian said as he knelt at the puzzle’s edge, “but I should be finished soon. I appreciate this human art, I do.”

“Julian—”

“I will take my medication.” He reached out a hand. Garak had nothing to give him and would not risk touching him again, anyway.

“Have I done something wrong?” Julian asked, finally looking up, just over Garak’s shoulder.

“No, Julian, no,” Garak reassured him.

Julian’s face contorted for just a second, fear flashing across his features. “You said—I was told that it was no longer necessary to put them in my applesauce. I promised I would take the pills instead, I did promise, and I took the first round this morning just fine.”

“Yes, Julian, you did. There—there aren’t any pills right now.”

“But I haven’t done anything wrong?”

“No,” Garak said desperately, trying to assuage that fear that he didn’t understand. 

“I promise I will try; get better, be better. I am getting better, I don’t—I don’t need to go to the meditation room, I will be better, Michael knows I know this is for my own good.”

Ice ran through Garak’s veins at the statement; he knew with every fiber of his being how much Julian hated that phrase, how it undid him to hear it, how wrapped into every fear it was. To hear it from Julian’s lips as he pled with some ghost named Michael was proof beyond measure at how lost Julian was here.

It was time to leave.

“Michael knows, Julian. There aren’t any pills right now and that’s okay, but there is someone who would like to see you. Will you follow me?”

Julian, stood, took one step and hesitated. “Is—is this part of a treatment?”

“No,” said Garak, not wanting to know what a “treatment” would be in this godsforsaken place, “no, we’re going to meet someone.”

Julian froze. “Is this because Garak came to see me? I didn’t send for him, I swear I didn’t send for him, I know he and Parmak are better off without me—I mean that I am better without them, that this is me getting better, I know—”

“Julian!” Garak interrupted, unable to let him continue as tears flowed again. That’s what they’d been teaching him, torturing him with? “Julian, it isn’t—”

But Julian had lost what little control he had, terrified at the idea of either a treatment room or a meditation room, and Garak did not know how to handle his husband begging him to see that he was trying, that he would do whatever was asked. Wrapping himself in old, old training, Garak advanced on Julian and pulled a knife from his belt, hitting Julian with the handle in just the right spot to knock him unconscious.

***

Garak did not ask Kelas to be transported over just yet; he needed to understand. He picked Julian up and gently laid him on the cot; the man weighed even less than Garak remembered and he wondered whether they’d allowed him to eat anything other than the drug-laden applesauce Julian did not want.

With the people out of the way, Garak wandered the complex. It was a massive ship for such a small operation—the records Garak had hacked only listed twelve patients—but much of it seemed to be run on automation rather than a large crew complement.

He did not think about which of the bodies he stepped over were patients.

In addition to the group room in which he’d found Julian and the various other cells that were all too bright and cold, there was the room with the chair and a single, narrow room Garak at first took to be a closet before realizing the placement was not right for that. He took one step inside, his hand holding the door open, and paused. The klaxons were too quiet, the room too dark, but there…

Garak rocketed backwards out of the room and gasped, his heartbeat too fast as a young woman stumbled out onto the floor. Garak had heard of rooms like these that blocked out sound and light, a living embodiment of his worst nightmare, but to find someone inside—how long had she been here? Tentatively, Garak bent down, laying a hesitant hand on her shoulder. It moved, barely, with her breath—still alive, then. He leaned slightly to see her face under a mass of flattened black hair; her eyes were clouded, her expression unsmiling and blank. 

He had seen enough.

Garak calmed himself and closed the door to the room he knew they had used to break his Julian, that would break _him_ in an instant. It seemed important to close it off from the universe. He looked at the woman at his feet who was clearly in no hurry to stand. He knew he could not face Kelas without her and so wrapped one hand over her shoulder, ready to let go in an instant if she recoiled with Julian’s intensity. She did not respond as he turned her over.

“Madam?” Garak asked, feeling foolish as the eyes stared beyond him. “Madam, we need to go.”

“I will not fight you,” she said, and the small voice was eerier than the silence.

“I’m glad,” Garak said, “but I need you to stand.”

Robotically, she pulled herself to her feet and waited. Not sure how else to explain things to her, Garak took a few steps toward Julian’s room. She did not follow and Garak looked again at her, at the fog covering her irises. “Madam, can you see?”

“I see that I have been wrong,” she responded and Garak wondered how many times she had had this exchange before. He realized she was blind and sighed, his instincts telling him to leave now, to go faster, to take Julian away, only Julian.

He reached out a hand to her. “I’m going to hold your hand so you can come with me,” he explained, slipping his fingers lightly into hers. Her grasp was perfunctory, impersonal, but Garak was oddly relieved that she did not flinch at his touch as his grey scales settled against her rich brown skin. More suspicions of the work done here gathered in his mind and he catalogued them for later. He led them both back to Julian’s room, placing small items on the walls as he went with his free hand, being careful to lead the woman around the bodies. Her feet were bare, too, and he wondered if she understood what liquid she stepped in as it coated her toes.

They arrived at Julian’s room and Julian was still sprawled unconscious on the bed. Garak breathed a small exhale of relief, tapping his commlink. “Kelas?” he said.

“Elim,” came the relieved voice. “Are you ready?”

“Very,” he said, “but there are three of us coming over.” He picked up Julian and glanced once more at the half-finished puzzle on the floor with the swirling stars as he shimmered into light and then nothingness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, off we go. I'll update every Sunday; I have the thing about half written and fully outlined at the moment, so bringing y'all on board is a good accountability measure. Also, this is my first time venturing into post-canon, so please have patience while I wade through what that looks like.
> 
> If you or someone you know has been subjected to something like conversion therapy (which I'm treating this as, though much more violent), please consider reaching out--to me, if you like, or to someone else you trust--to talk through that trauma. You are who you are and that is beautiful and good.


	2. Chapter 2

Kelas sprang out of the pilot’s seat as Garak materialized with Julian draped over his shoulder and the woman just behind him. “ _Elim_ ,” Kelas sighed, coming over and embracing Garak and Julian both. “Is he alright?”

“I had to render him unconscious,” Garak said as he helped Kelas maneuver Julian to a bed in the small ship. “He would not have come with me otherwise.”

“Would not have—did he not _want_ to leave?”

Garak led the woman to a passenger seat nearby before sitting heavily on the edge of the cot next to Julian and looking up into the worried eyes of his husband. “I do not know what, in full, happened here, Kelas, but Julian—Julian is not aware of reality anymore. He did not—he did not fully understand who I was and feared that he was going to be given some new round of medication or other such ‘treatment.’ I could not reason with him and he would have fought me had I tried to simply transport him. This was…easier.”

“For him, perhaps,” murmured Kelas, and Garak turned away from those eyes that saw too much. He stood and headed toward the pilot’s chair. 

“I imagine he has a great many pharmaceuticals in his system and so I leave him to your care, now. I need to get us out of here as quickly as possible.”

“Elim,” said Kelas quietly. “Is any of the blood either of yours?” 

Garak looked down at himself, faintly surprised that he had forgotten the red splayed all over him, stained into Julian’s trousers. “Not much, Kelas,” he said. “I have only a few cuts, and he has the head wound I gave him.”

“Elim—”

“Tend to Julian, Kelas. I must erase this contamination from the universe.”

Kelas made a motion as if to keep arguing but realized the woman was still sitting patiently on the chair. He knelt in front of her, noting the faded eyes. “Madam, my name is Kelas Parmak. Can you see me?”

She cocked her head.

“Can you hear me?” Kelas tried again.

“Are you not human?” she asked, and Garak realized the difference.

“Kelas, she doesn’t understand Kardasi,” he said over his shoulder. “She’s speaking Federation Standard—I didn’t even think about it on the ship, but that’s what she spoke with me as well.”

Kelas nodded. Being married to Julian had encouraged him to learn enough Standard to hold a short conversation, but he was by no means fluent. “My name is Kelas Parmak,” he said, his tongue twisting over the strange sentence structure. “Yours?”

“Shannon,” the woman responded. “I don’t think I’m allowed to talk to you.”

Kelas sighed. Where was her universal translator? Wasn’t that something all Federation humans had? “Are you hurt?” he asked, thanking the gods that Julian was a doctor as well and had taught him the basics of medical language.

She smiled, an eerie and empty grin that chilled Kelas to his bones. “I am better,” she said, her blank eyes looking over his head at nothing.

“I—” Frustrated, he turned to Garak and asked in Kardasi, “Can you translate? I need to ask her if I can check her for internal injuries.”

“One moment,” Garak responded tersely. He pressed a few buttons on the console and Kelas saw a bloom of orange and red flash in the monitor over Garak’s shoulder.

“You blew up the ship?” he said in disbelief.

Garak finished setting the autopilot before standing, pulling his shirt down definitively. “It is best, Kelas.”

Kelas steadied himself, asked what he had not wanted to know. “So there were no other survivors?”

Garak sighed, closing his eyes tightly, hearing the klaxons ring in his mind. “No.”

The pair let the silence settle between them, heavy and sharp.

“I really should not talk to you,” Shannon said, breaking the tension. “I think I should go back to my room.”

“That is—not possible,” said Garak.

The first tendrils of fear Garak had seen in her flashed across her features. “It has to be possible,” she said. “I have been wrong. I must go back to show that I know I have been wrong, that the treatment is no longer necessary.”

“Shannon,” interrupted Kelas, “what if you stay here?”

She started to rock, her arms wrapping around her thin frame. “I must go back, I must go back, I see I was wrong, I will be better, I do not need meditation, I am fine, I am fine, I am human among humans, I see I was wrong—”

“Shannon, breathe!” Kelas said, alarmed at the way her breaths had become short and shallow. “I—” He shook his head, frustrated, and reached out to take hold of her wrist. 

It was the wrong move. Shannon collapsed in on herself, weeping in distress. “I can’t be here, I have to go back, they will find me, I must go to my room, I must go,” she sobbed into the chair.

“The hypospray by your hand,” Kelas snapped at Garak, “hand it here.”

Garak gave it to him and Kelas apologized to Shannon before pressing it to her neck. She slumped to the bed, unconscious.

“Sedative?” Garak asked.

Kelas nodded. “I had calculated it to human levels; I'll monitor the dosage's effect on her. It was for the best.”

Garak chose not to comment on the decisions both of them were making in the interest of a best they could not define.

“Where did you find her?”

“She—she was in one of the rooms.” The memory alone closed Garak’s throat in fear—a room with no light, no sound, and a closed door... “I don’t know who she is beyond being one of the other…patients. I believe she is blind.”

“Yes,” said Kelas absently. “She is also heavily traumatized, completely unaware of her surroundings, and now on a ship with two Cardassians she’s never met. It’s no wonder she was having a panic response.”

“Would you rather I had left her?”

Kelas glared at Garak. “Of course not. I’m just frustrated that I can’t ask her what I need to ask, can’t get her permission—I don’t know the language for what I need to say.”

“I will translate, Kelas, when it is necessary.” 

Kelas nodded, picking up his scanner and turning to Julian. Garak watched as Kelas took a first reading, his long white braid sliding forward over his shoulder as he bent to examine the head wound.

“You hit him fairly hard,” Kelas said.

“I did not have an easier choice,” Garak responded.

“Fortunately, it doesn’t seem to be a concussion.” Kelas set down his scanner, gently probing Julian’s head with his fingers. 

“I know how to knock someone out without breaking them, Kelas,” said Garak.

“I am aware.” Kelas’ voice was soft, almost too soft for Garak to hear it, and the things they did not say yowled in the space between them.

Garak broke the silence first. “Does he have other—internal injuries?”

Kelas shook his head. “I don’t see any, but I’ll run another scan once we’re back in Cardassia City. The equipment there can get more detailed than I can here.” He stood and turned to Shannon, running the scan on her as well.

“How can I help, Kelas?” Garak asked.

“Change.”

“What?”

Kelas looked at him, his usually bright eyes flat. “I will ask what happened later—much later, I think. But for right now, I really do not want to share this shuttle with you while you are covered in other people’s blood.”

Garak looked down at his ruined tunic and nodded. “I’ll replicate myself something,” he said, and Kelas recognized Garak’s accommodation in replicating something when he hated what he thought of as synthetic clothes. Kelas focused on Shannon as Garak went to the refresher to wash what he could and change into clothes that masked what he could not. When he returned, he saw Kelas standing over Julian, shaking. Checking his impulse to rush over and grasp the man, Garak stood just apart from him.

“Elim,” Kelas said, his voice catching as he faced Garak, “the amount of pharmaceuticals in their systems…I don’t know how they aren’t dead, medically.”

Garak closed his eyes briefly. “Can you flush out their systems?”

“I—I don’t know. I don’t even know what some of these substances _are_ , nor how long either of them has been on them and whether they’ve built up a dependence. Detoxification is going to be absolute hell.”

“No, Kelas,” Garak said softly as he brushed a hand over Julian’s brow, “they have been in absolute hell. This will not be that.”

Kelas laid a hand on Garak’s shoulder. “Elim, what was there?”

Garak shook his head. “Not yet, Kelas. Not until we are in Cardassian space.”

“Should we be worried about pursuit?”

Garak thought of the splintered pieces of the ship flying from each other on the monitor, the silent grave in the blackness between the stars he had created. “It is best to always be wary when in others’ space.”

“But this is neutral space.”

“No space is truly neutral.”

Kelas paused, his thumb absently rubbing Garak’s bicep. “Was it that bad?”

Garak looked him in the eyes and Kelas took a step back from the fury glinting like diamonds there, glancing away with a shiver. “If I ever find out the Bashirs knew what they were sending him to,” said Garak, his voice sharp and slick as a stiletto, “I will use every means Tain ever taught me to ensure they know of their error.”

“Elim, don’t—”

Garak turned away from Kelas’ kindness and returned to the controls. 

“Elim, this is not something I can fix at home after a quick jaunt to the hospital. They will both have to be under medical supervision in a fully-equipped facility.”

“Can your hospital support it?”

Kelas looked at the humans again, calculating in his mind. “Yes, but we may have to reach out to the Federation. There are some things about human physiology I simply don’t know.”

“We will not speak to the Federation.”

“But I don’t—”

“Julian has some connections I can speak to privately, Kelas. We do not need to involve official structures.”

Kelas nodded at no one, recognizing the hard edges of Garak’s protective nature rearing with unstoppable force. “It will be more for her sake than his; I have his medical records on file, but I’ve never worked with a human woman before.”

“They are comparable,” said Garak.

“To what?”

“Each other.” 

“I imagine so, being that they’re both human, but there are physiological differences, not to mention her blindness. If that’s something with which she was born, I will treat it differently than if it is of later onset.” Kelas paused, and Garak thought of just how many ways the things he had seen could be used to steal someone’s eyesight. He would not be surprised were that the case. His consideration was interrupted by Kelas’ voice, obviously steeled to his question. “How many were there?”

Garak sighed. “Don’t do this to yourself, Kelas.”

“Have you not done this to _your_ self?”

 _Today was a good day_ , Garak heard echoing in his mind. “I need to focus on getting us back to Cardassian space.” 

Kelas stared at Garak’s back for a while before returning to the humans, running a grey-and-white finger gently down the side of Julian’s face.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know a lot of tales on here have made Kelas nonbinary or intersex, which is neat, but I'm following Cyrelia_J and Andy Robinson's pronouns for this particular tale. I am, however, taking on the idea that he has vitiligo from his time in the labor camp; I don't remember who on here created that headcanon, but I love it.
> 
> I have a Whole Long Thing about the translation breakdown, but the short version is that the Parallel Organization is xenophobic AF and if you don't want to hang out with aliens then you shouldn't need to understand them, so they've removed the UTs that Julian and Shannon had and said Standard Only. (I'm working off the way American and Canadian white folk washed out indigenous languages in their schools in the 19th/20th centuries for this detail.)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Heads up, this chapter introduces medical squickiness, so be aware if that's discomforting for you. No gore or anything, just mention of medical trauma and its effects.
> 
> Also, the entirety of hospital description is based off of when I used to work in a hospital as a chaplain, so please grant grace if it doesn't sound futuristic enough.

The computer beeped almost cheerily when they crossed the invisible line into the safety of Cardassian territory and Garak felt a laugh bubble up at the joy that Cardassian space was safe to him again after so many years otherwise. He squelched it quickly.

“Talk to me, Elim,” Kelas said.

“Not until we get home.”

“It was until we reached Cardassian territory. Now it is until we reach Prime?”

Garak jerked in what could have been a nod.

“That will be at least three hours yet. Shall we sit in silence?”

“You should be attending to your patients.”

“I am.”

Garak glanced sideways at Kelas. “You are including me.”

“I am.”

Sighing, Garak turned the chair toward his husband. “There is a reason I told you not to beam over.”

“There are at least three reasons I can think of that you would tell me such a thing, and I stayed here. But that doesn’t mean you can’t talk to me about what you saw.”

Garak looked back at Julian resting fitfully on the cot. He walked the corridors in his mind, feeling the knives in his hands, the resistance of flesh, the bony warmth of his Julian at last. “There were multiple rooms,” he said, still looking at Julian instead of Kelas. “It—it was torture, what they were doing there. I don’t know exactly what type, but some of the equipment was…familiar.”

Kelas exhaled slowly, settling himself in the chair opposite Garak and lightly cupping his hands around Garak’s clenched fists. Garak wondered when he had closed his fingers so tightly and deliberately unfurled them, feeling the muscles pull in protest. It had been some time, then, for the joints to lock so.

“His room was too bright, even for a human. I wonder if they ever turned it off—it’s an old, old trick, never to allow darkness. It was so cold there, even colder than the station was. And there was nothing—nothing but a puzzle…”

“A puzzle?” Kelas asked after Garak had fallen into silence. 

“Some Earth art that Julian was working on. It was all over his floor; it was the only color in the place. You would have liked it, Kelas—what I saw of it, anyway. It had the sort of fantastic quality you appreciate.”

“Ah, so not a leaf that looked exactly like a leaf, as you would appreciate?” A small smile tugged at Kelas’ lips.

“No,” said Garak, “a sky of swirling stars.” He brought his hands to his eyes abruptly, twisting his fingers into his eyeridges. “Julian is a _genius_ , a genetic _marvel_ , and they gave him a human child’s _puzzle_ , Kelas. That’s what his occupation was. That’s how far they had _stripped_ him of himself.”

“Did he say so?” Kelas reached up and gently substituted his own fingers for Garak’s ridges, allowing Garak to hold on painfully tightly.

Garak shook his head. “He—he kept talking about being willing, being ready to take medication of some new kind. He wanted to know if he had been bad when I didn’t give him any. Kelas,” Garak said, his voice cracking slightly as he raised his eyes to Kelas’ face, “he told me he knew it was for his own good.”

Kelas’ inhale was sharp and sudden, his hands tightening suddenly around Garak’s. “No,” he said softly. “He would never.”

“I didn’t even prompt him, which means it was something they had been saying to him. Kelas, if they had advance information from the Bashirs, there are all sorts of things they could have known to say to him, to _do_ to him.”

Kelas’ eyes glittered. “ _Elim_ ,” he whispered, and Garak tilted his head forward, resting their _chUfas_ together. The pair sat breathing together for some time, listening to the hum of the ship and the occasional shifting of one of the humans, grieving in this space beyond time.

“I think,” Kelas said eventually, “that my work on their physical selves will not be the bulk of what they need to heal.”

Garak pulled back and looked over at the humans again. “No,” he agreed, “but Julian is strong. He—he has been through much in the time I’ve known him. I can only hope she is as strong.”

_And that this is not the final straw of too much_ passed unspoken between them as Kelas released Garak and went to check on his patients, letting Garak return to the work of flight and accepting the silence that filled the cabin for the rest of the journey.

***

“I need to contact the hospital,” Kelas said as soon as Garak informed him they were within communications range of Cardassia Prime. “I need to make sure they set up space for us.”

Garak tapped in the commands and gestured to Kelas as he stood to take over the vigil at the back of the ship. Kelas’ jargon-filled conversation with his colleagues about necessary equipment and medications and observation space drifted past him as he sat next to Julian and ran a hand lightly over the dark hair starting to go grey. He remembered teasing Julian about it once, just over a year ago.

_“Silver, my Julian? Have you been spending too much time around Kelas, perhaps? Although with his white and my black, I think we shall make a charming trio of greyscale indeed.”_

_Julian ducked his head away from Garak’s fingers, avoiding his gaze in the mirror._

_“Julian?”_

_“It’s only a few strands,” Julian muttered as he turned away from the sink and headed back into their bedroom._

_“Julian, are you alright?”_

_“Fine.” He snapped up the rest of his uniform, an outfit only marginally less awful on his lanky frame than the Starfleet pajamas had been. Garak had done his best for the fit, but the Cardassian equivalent of hospital scrubs was no more designed to be flattering than the Federation version. It was an outfit of practicality and disposability, not fashion—something that both Kelas and Julian found endlessly delightful if only because it exasperated their dear tailor so._

_“Julian, wait.” Garak stepped in front of Julian before he hurried out of the room. “My dear, what is wrong?”_

_Julian hesitated. “It’s nothing.”_

_“Clearly it is not.”_

_“It’s foolish.”_

_“That is an altogether different thing, and perhaps I disagree with you. After all, I do so love to disagree with you.” There was no answering smile to Garak’s gibe, an indicator that worried him more than Julian’s unwillingness still to meet his eyes. He softened his voice. “Have I said something to cause offense?”_

_Julian sighed and finally looked at Garak, raising a hand to stroke lightly down Garak’s jawridge. “No, Garak, it’s—do…do you remember my 30th birthday?”_

_The pieces clicked in Garak’s mind. “The Lethean’s attack.”_

_Julian nodded. “I aged so quickly—my hair went totally white, just like Kelas’ is—although not nearly as handsome. And it’s not like I didn’t know I would age, eventually, I just…I have seen myself old, Garak, and it…” He swallowed and smiled a small, embarrassed smile. “It scares me, Elim, to see even a shadow of that older me becoming real.”_

_Garak reached up with both hands to hold Julian’s face gently between them. “My dear doctor,” he said, “it is not foolish at all.” He kissed him lightly, sweetly, and Julian wrapped his arms around Garak’s waist, laying his cheek against Garak’s temple._

_“I worry that it will go too fast,” he whispered, and Garak hugged him tightly._

_“I will make sure to tell Time to go slowly,” Garak said, and smiled as he felt Julian’s ribcage bounce in quiet laughter in the circle of his arms._

There was more silver in Julian’s hair now, Garak noted, whole chunks of it at his temples and over his forehead. Garak had no doubt that, if he let a beard grow in again, it would be more grey than black. He trailed the backs of his fingers down the five o’clock shadow just starting to grow on Julian’s cheek.

Julian jerked awake, wide-eyed and unfocused. “Garak?” he said, his voice thick and strange.

Garak pulled his hand back immediately. “Julian, I am here.”

“Garak—no, you can’t—you can’t be here, I don’t—Garak, you have to go, you have to—”

Kelas was at Garak’s side with a scanner, his doctor’s need to analyze warring with his heartache at the confusion and fear in his husband’s eyes.

“Kelas?” said Julian in a small voice.

Kelas almost dropped his scanner. “Yes, Julian; yes, I’m here.” He reached out and Julian recoiled, thunking against the bulkhead as he curled into himself.

“ _No_ , don’t _touch_ me,” Julian said vehemently, “you can’t _touch_ me, _don’t touch me_.” He pulled his head into his knees and rocked, his eyes squeezed shut. “I don’t hear it, they aren’t here, I promise, I know it’s not real, I’ll get better, I’ll be better, please stop, _please stop_ I’m sorry I’m sorry _I’m sorry_ —”

His muscles abruptly went slack as Kelas pushed the hypospray of sedative into his neck and guided the unconscious human back to lying down. Kelas collapsed more than knelt beside the cot, his hands covering his face. Garak moved off the cot to kneel beside him, gathering Kelas into his arms.

“Elim, he—he was so _lost_ , so afraid. What did they do to him?”

Garak simply held Kelas tighter as he wept on Garak’s shoulder until the signal from the computer told them they were ready to begin descent.

***

Kelas tried to send Garak away when the four of them made it to the private room set up at the hospital. “You should sleep, Elim,” he said as they stood outside the room’s door. “You have been working nonstop these six months. You need rest.”

“I know. But after.”

“They won’t wake such that we’ll need a translator.”

“I have to see what they’ve done to him.”

Kelas studied him. “Whatever marks he has are not your fault, Elim,” he said softly.

“I’ve seen the machines. I can tell you what the marks are from so you can know what kind of tissue damage to expect,” replied Garak, all formality.

“Elim—”

“Kelas.” Garak grasped Kelas’ hands, his eyes searching. “I need to see.”

After a moment, Kelas nodded and the two headed in together. Several nurses were gathered around Shannon’s bed connecting her to a biofunction monitor. Kelas noted that they had already changed her into a hospital gown and were cleaning several lacerations on her arms.

“We presumed you would like to do the intake of Dr. Bashir yourself, Dr. Parmak,” said one of the nurses, detaching himself from the group. “I would like to help.”

“Thank you, Khet.” Catching the nurse’s glance at Garak, Parmak explained, “Councilor Garak will be assisting as well.”

Nurse Khet hesitated before nodding. Garak ignored them both, crossing to Julian’s bed immediately and running a caressing hand through his hair.

“Gloves, Councilor,” Parmak said, pulling on a pair of his own. “If you’re to stay, you must abide by procedure. I will not have you jeopardizing his health with a stray infection.”

Garak nodded and donned the gloves as Khet handed Parmak scissors. Gently, Parmak cut through the collar and front of Julian’s dull grey shirt, pulling the cloth open. His hand trembled as he handed the shears back—Julian’s torso was covered in scarred and half-healed gouges, his ribs prominent under the sickly-pale skin.

“Those are from metal conductors,” said Garak, reaching over to indicate several burned patches, “indicating electric shocks. And these jagged tears in the skin are likely from poorly-applied sensor pads.”

Parmak could _see_ Garak pull on his old inquisitor self like a well-worn coat, his face closing off and his eyes blanking into an implacable blue. Parmak shivered; he still had nightmares, sometimes, about those eyes that had broken him. He hated seeing them here, ticking off the injuries of their husband like a supply list. Taking a deep and steadying breath, Parmak helped Khet set the larger scanner for any internal injuries he may have missed on the shuttle.

“These are likely self-inflicted,” Garak continued, pointing out several tracks down Julian’s arms and neck. “Quite probably it was scratching to redirect from mental or physical pain.”

Parmak, avoiding looking at Garak’s eyes, noted instead that Garak’s hands hovered over Julian’s skin without ever touching it. They shook slightly.

Parmak wasn’t the only one avoiding, then.

“Can we turn him over?”

Parmak shifted the scanner and nodded to Khet. “I see nothing broken—at least, nothing that hasn’t been sloppily mended.”

“There were broken bones?”

Parmak nodded. “If, as you say, there were conductors attached, the pattern I’m seeing is likely that he—” He swallowed as his voice caught on the reality, “that he thrashed hard enough he broke several of his own ribs and dislocated a shoulder at least once. There are also several healed fractures in his arm.” Parmak found that Garak’s professional distance was seeping into him—stay calm, stay detached. This was a patient, not his husband, whose head lolled forward into Parmak’s hand as he and Khet tilted him onto his side. More scarring splotched its way down Julian’s back, the discs of his spine a noticeable mountain range. Parmak had noted malnutrition in the original scans, but _seeing_ it like this in a man who had been so wiry and thin to begin with—

Parmak snapped himself back, gently laying Julian down. He could feel later; now was business. Khet threaded Julian’s arms through a hospital gown while Parmak took a deep breath and cut through Julian’s trousers. He wanted to keep cutting the fabric until it lay in thin strips on the floor, but he forced himself to put down the scissors and pull the trousers out from underneath the human.

“Aversive shock therapy,” said Garak, his voice soft as if he were forcing it through his throat. The professional mask slipped the smallest bit as Parmak glanced quickly at him. “They were trying to re-route his sexual desires—placing shock pads on or near the genitals to reinforce a negative reaction for certain stimuli is an old and clumsy trick, but with enough repetition it does work.” Garak pulled the gown over the shiny burns on Julian’s belly and thighs. "He could not let me touch him," he said to no one, his voice small.

Parmak traced a finger over the arch in Julian’s foot, clean now of the blood Parmak knew was someone else’s. He spun out a series of antibiotics and vitamin supplements for Khet to program into the stimulators. “We’ll need a sitter,” he added. “I don’t want to restrain either of them, but I fear they will be disoriented and possibly violent when they wake. Have half-meter-long bonds around each wrist, and I want someone to be ready to call for intervention if they need. Be aware—neither of them is speaking in Kardasi, so verbal communication will likely not be an option.”

“I can do that,” said Garak.

“No,” sighed Parmak, “you can’t. You need a bath, a lot of sleep, dinner, and space to process that J—Dr. Bashir is home.”

“I’ll be fine.”

Khet turned his head away discreetly as he began the nutrient feeds.

“No, E—Garak, you will not. You _are_ not. _I_ am not, and I need you not to fight me on this.” Kelas suddenly felt so tired, too tired even to continue standing. “We need to go home, _ss’lei_ , and rest so that we can properly be here for him. And for her.”

Garak looked at him, the use of the endearment forcing him to see the weariness in Parmak’s eyes that he could now feel in his own body. “Very well,” he said. “But we shall return tomorrow. And Khet?”

The nurse turned, startled at being addressed. “Yes, Councilor?”

“Notify us if he wakes.”

Khet looked at Parmak for confirmation and Parmak nodded. 

“Yes, Councilor.”

“Good.” Garak pulled off the gloves and left the room, Parmak thanking Khet and trailing along exhaustedly after.

_***_

Neither Garak nor Kelas could chart how they arrived at home; neither could remember having gotten there until they stood in the entryway. The house shouted Julian’s absence even more loudly than it had these past six months; Julian’s favorite chair and stacked padds they had never moved pointed to the space he wasn’t in. Julian’s bear, Kukalaka, sat on a shelf in their living room, silently asking why they had returned and he had not.

Garak turned away from the toy’s accusation and trudged off to draw himself a bath. He tossed off the replicated clothing and slid into the hot water, bowing forward and feeling his body begin to shake. It built within him until he was making the water ripple with the force of his shudders. Kelas came in and knelt at the edge of the basin, pulling Garak into his arms and holding him tightly. Garak pulled back, dragging Kelas into the tub with him, ignoring that he was still clothed, and Kelas did not fight him as they clung to each other with Garak’s fingers entwined in the half-undone braid and Kelas whispering soothing nothings into Garak’s shoulder.

“I failed him, Kelas,” Garak whispered at last.

Kelas sighed and shifted, kicking off his shoes and pulling his legs into the tub with him to sit on Garak’s lap. “You brought him back, Elim.”

“We.”

“We brought him back, yes.”

“But he is not there.”

Kelas held Garak’s face in his hands and kissed him lightly on the _chUfa_. “This is the first of many days. Do not condemn us quite yet.”

Garak looked at him, his blue eyes bleached by sorrow and something like helplessness. Kelas felt his breath catch at the sight of such an unfamiliar thing. “Us?” asked Garak. 

“Us,” Kelas said firmly. “We three pledged our lives to each other when we were enjoined.”

“What if they have taken that from him?”

Kelas’ eyes hardened, the normally gentle brown becoming fierce. “Then by the gods, we take it back.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> After way too much research, I’m thinking the Parallel Organization ship was hanging out on the very fringe of the Federation, almost in the territory of the Sheliak Conglomerate and on the edges of explored space. The Cardassian Union is about three numbers up a clock face away from that, which isn't terribly far even though they'd have to be careful to skirt Federation space. (Why yes, I do have maps.)
> 
> Also, I nicked the intimate titile of _ss'lei_ from someone here on AO3, but damned if I remember who. Apolesen, maybe? My apologies, person from whom I stole.
> 
> Also also, God bless fantasynamegenerator.com.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have read "A Stitch in Time" and stole some worldbuilding from it (you'll see more later, as well), but you don't have to have read that to get my things. I think.

Kelas woke first the next morning, a very unusual occurrence. He uncurled from Garak’s arms gently, rolling to sit on the edge of their bed and resting his head in his hands. His white hair wrapped over his shoulders, wild after pulling free from its usual braid and drying in the night.

_“Why do you keep it long?” Julian asked, raking his fingers through the strands._

_Kelas shrugged. “I prefer it this way.”_

_“It is so the old gods recognize him without having to search for his name when the universe falls apart,” Garak called from the wardrobe as he fastened his tunic._

_“Is that true?” Julian leaned forward, his hazel eyes bright with curiosity._

_“It is_ not _true,” Kelas said. “Elim simply likes to tease me for thinking that perhaps Cardassians aren’t the best and brightest this system has ever had to offer.”_

_“Tease?” said Garak innocently, coming over and kissing Kelas on top of the head. “I would never.”_

_Julian snorted. “Now that I_ know _to be a lie.”_

_“Just because there is so much to tease you about, my dear,” answered Garak with a small smile. “Don’t forget to go to work, you two.” He kissed Julian briefly and left, stepping into his official self as he stepped out of the room._

_“Is it true, though?” Julian was sitting up at Kelas’ side and Kelas turned to face him, one knee propped up against his._

_“No, but I suppose it is connected in some way. The Hebitians, the people before us, often had longer hair, and my braid does connect me to them. But it is—it is more than that.” Kelas felt the familiar fear rise in him for a moment._

_Julian took one hand in his, rubbing gently over the swelling where the bones had been broken. “Defiance,” he said._

_“What?”_

_“It is a stark symbol of defiance. Humans have used their appearances to contradict social norms for centuries, so it’s good to see the practice carries across species. And I imagine—well, I imagine it helps you to remember who you were…before.”_

_Kelas cupped Julian’s face in his free hand, searching his eyes. “It helps me remember who I am trying to be now,” he said._

_Julian grinned. “Handsome?”_

_Kelas laughed and kissed him lightly. “Such a flirt you are.”_

_“It seems to work in my favor. Besides,” Julian tucked a strand of hair behind Kelas’ ear, “I love your hair. Whatever it means.”_

_“How fortunate for me,” Kelas responded._

“Kelas?” Garak’s voice interrupted the memory and Kelas realized his face was wet. Brushing away the tears, he reached a hand to Garak’s on his shoulder.

“Good morning, Elim.”

“It would not seem so.”

Kelas sighed. “I was…remembering.” He felt Garak shift to curl behind him, wrapping his arms around Kelas’ midsection and resting his chin on his shoulder.

“Good?”

“Julian.”

Garak’s arms tightened slightly. “I have every faith in you, Kelas.”

Kelas let his head fall back on Garak’s shoulder, blinking at the ceiling to push the tears back. “What if I can’t bring him back, Elim?” he asked quietly.

“Was it not you telling me not to condemn us quite yet?”

Lifting his head, Kelas shifted in Garak’s grip so they were facing each other. “You doubt in the night, I in the day,” he said.

Garak ran a hand through Kelas’ hair, an echo of Julian’s. “Then I shall believe in the day, and you in the night.”

Parmak closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against Garak’s, the two of them breathing together. “I think I can manage that,” he said at last.

“Good. Then let’s head to the hospital.”

“Don’t you need to check in with the ministry?”

Garak was already up and off the bed. “I’ll send them a message that I’m back on-planet, but I’m not expected to be back for another two octals.”

“They gave you that long?”

Garak looked at Kelas with fire in his blue eyes. “I informed them I would take that long. And longer, if necessary.”

“Elim, you have already spent so much of the last six months—”

“Kelas, do you really think I would be working if I were at work? That I would not be obsessively considering how Julian is doing? How you were doing?”

Kelas conceded the point. “I’m glad they are giving you so much space.”

“The right people know why,” Garak said simply, “and Julian has been enough of an asset in the Reclamation that there is little disagreement with my prioritizing his safety.”

Kelas joined him in getting ready, wondering at the small fear that surfaced within him that such generosity might be reconsidered if they could see how completely not an asset Julian was now.

***

“Any change in the night?” Parmak asked the on-duty nurse as he headed to Julian and Shannon’s room with Garak trailing behind.

“They haven’t woken yet,” she answered, “but it’s been quite the ordeal helping their bodies counteract the detox effects. Part of what’s keeping them unconscious is the early stages of withdrawal.”

“Have we been able to determine what all they were on?”

“Mostly—there are a couple of compounds Dr. Lomak would like to speak with you about as she isn’t sure what they _are_.”

“As I suspected,” Parmak mused. “Were they both on the same mixture?”

“No; the woman was on fewer substances. Dr. Lomak is thinking she may be lucid for a short time by the end of today.”

“Thank you, Reyta,” Parmak said, aware of Garak’s straining impatience behind him hidden underneath a veneer of polite attentiveness. “We’ll go in and see them.”

The nurse nodded and walked away and Parmak and Garak went to the door. Parmak stopped them before entering. “I know you were listening and I know you know what all of that meant, so remember that he will still look like hell when we go in.”

“I’m not simple, Kelas.”

“No, but in your own way you can be absurdly hopeful.”

“What a terrific insult.”

“I mean it, Garak,” said Parmak. “You can believe in the day, but don’t get so far ahead of us that you fall into unreasonable expectations, okay?”

Garak sighed and nodded and Parmak opened the door. The two humans looked wasted in their beds, the white hospital restraints encircling too-thin wrists. Shannon, several shades darker than Bashir, looked as though someone had poured salt water onto brown paint, washing the color out in strange and uneven ways. Her black hair, now washed by the nurses, kinked out in strange angles against the pillow.

“Dr. Lomak,” said Parmak, greeting his colleague, “I was told you wanted to see me.”

A stout woman in a crisp tunic looked up from her hold on Julian’s wrist. “Dr. Parmak, good morning. Yes, I have several things to pass along.”

“Shall we step out a moment?”

Dr. Lomak looked at Garak, hesitating, and looked again at Parmak, who tilted his head toward the door. She nodded and left the room; Parmak followed, tossing back over his shoulder, “Gently, Councilor.”

Garak took a deep breath, noting the sitter in the corner of the room and wishing he could ask him to leave. For his part, the sitter was immersed in a padd and, after noticing who had come in, was not attempting to make himself part of any conversation. Garak crossed to Julian’s bedside and perched, running his fingers over the restraint connecting him to the bedframe. “I am sorry, Julian,” he murmured in Standard, “sorry that I did not get there sooner. You should—you should never had had to endure any of this.” He looked at the gaunt face of his beloved, at the scratch marks tracking over the top of the hospital gown. Julian had been through so much, had rearranged his life to come to Cardassia and be with him, with them. Garak was still utterly floored by the memory of Julian arriving on his doorstep two years prior, by the faith of such a massive shift. 

Had Julian stopped having faith in him as the months on that ship slipped by?

The door opened and Garak tensed before realizing it was Parmak returning. 

“Good news, Councilor,” Parmak said, “Dr. Lomak thinks she can synthesize the unknown contaminants in Julian’s blood so that we can wean him properly from the cocktail.”

“And the woman?”

“Isn’t on as much, so she will be able to recover much more quickly—at least, to be able to wake normally. It—it will take many days before their systems can fully shed the drugs. It would help if we could look over some physiological texts.”

“Ah, yes,” Garak said, remembering his promise to connect Parmak with Federation medical notes. “I will contact someone this evening.”

“Garak,” Parmak said gently, a tone in which Garak heard “Elim” quite clearly, “the sooner we can understand Shannon, the better.”

Garak looked at Julian, at the hand mere centimeters from Garak’s own, at the skin he did not dare touch now. He sighed. “May I use your office computer?”

“You know the way.” _You know the encryptions needed._

Garak nodded and left, trailing one finger across the restraint around Julian’s wrist, feeling the cloth instead of the warmth beneath.

***

The expression that looked back at him from the monitor was one of hope warring with worry. “Well?”

“Commander Dax, we have him.”

Ezri Dax huffed out a sigh of relief. “I am so glad to hear it, Garak.”

“Your intel was invaluable, Commander; thank you for sharing it with me.”

“I still wish you would have gone through official Federation channels, Garak; there are parts of the Federation that have been wanting an opening to take down the Parallel Organization for years.”

“And there are others that wish to support its aims, Commander—how else could they have a starship in the first place? I was not interested in gambling on which faction would be the more powerful in answering my query.”

Dax nodded thoughtfully. “Is he okay?”

Garak considered. “He is here at the hospital. It—will be a long recovery.”

“But he will recover?” Dax’s concern was almost palpable across the light-years.

“Dr. Parmak has great hope,” Garak said, wishing he could lie, knowing that he dare not to Dax, of all people. “There is, however, a further complication. In retrieving Julian from the ship, it became necessary to take with me another patient, a human woman. We are not greatly versed in human anatomy to begin with here, far less with human women. Dr. Parmak has asked that I request medical files so he can treat her properly as well.”

“And that is also something you’d like to keep on the sly, I take it?”

“It would be my first choice, yes.”

Dax sighed. “I’ll see what I can do. I’m a first officer, not a doctor, so I don’t immediately have access to the kind of files you’re probably going to need. But I can reach out to Julian’s successor on DS9 and see if she can help.” Dax grinned suddenly. “In all the years of people accusing you of wanting Federation secrets, I don’t think they ever thought of human anatomy as one you’d go for.”

“It is hardly a secret,” Garak replied. “But I admit, not being a Federation world has its limitations sometimes.”

“We’d be willing to welcome you into the fold,” Dax said in an almost sing-song voice.

Garak pursed his lips at her. “Please, Commander. Neither of us is so naïve as to think it would be that simple.”

“No,” said Dax with resignation, “we aren’t. So I’ll talk to DS9 and kick up whatever I can for you—I assume the sooner the better.”

“Please.”

“And Garak.” Garak paused, his hand over the panel to disconnect. “He will be okay, right? I know he and I didn’t work out, but that doesn’t mean I don’t love him as a friend.”

Garak thought of the restraints wrapped around a too-thin wrist, of the burns on Julian’s thighs and the fear in his eyes when Garak had touched him. “I will pass along your concern, Commander.”

“Ezri.”

“Ezri.”

Garak disconnected the call, erased the log, and tried to convince himself that punching a hole through the computer would not be as helpful as he felt it might be.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The forehead connection is _anshwar_ , an [AuroraNova](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AuroraNova/pseuds/AuroraNova) invention, I believe. The system of octals instead of weeks is from AlphaCygni's [These Lifeless Things](https://archiveofourown.org/works/15294315/chapters/35481987).
> 
> Time-wise, I've decided that Julian arrived about six months after the Dominion destruction and that the thruple has been enjoined for just over a year--six months of which were spent trying to rescue Julian, so the whole marriage thing isn't going as anyone planned.
> 
> Shout out to Mami94 for getting me to rethink some of Ezri's lines here.


	5. Chapter 5

Parmak waited for Garak to return before going on his own rounds, sectioning off his worry about Julian and Shannon and Garak himself in a side folder in his mind.

It seemed Garak had rubbed off on him more than he realized, that he could compartmentalize like that.

His work day felt jarringly normal as he checked in on post-surgery recoveries and reprieved a colleague for a spell to deal with the many who came in with respiratory ailments; the dust still hadn’t quite settled, even three years after the pummeling of their planet. He checked in on Garak as often as possible; he had sent the sitter away, recognizing that Garak was as immovable as the walls themselves, and would be at least as helpful to the patients as any hospital employee. Each time Parmak stuck his head in the room off in that secluded wing of long-term patients, Shannon and Julian and Garak all were still as death. Parmak hated the comparison but couldn’t push it away. He did not want to think about what life would look like if Julian did not come back.

He knew Garak would not, either.

What a strange turn of fate that he should be so shaken by the idea of losing a former torturer and a former Starfleet officer. But each patient with a spouse worriedly hovering over a shoulder, each parent distractedly asking whether their child would be okay reminded him of the trio of shadows in that hospital room where his heart beat in time with Julian’s, Garak’s still breaths breathing for the slim human, and if there was a moment where Parmak slumped against the wall of the hallway to plead with the old gods that Garak insisted had abandoned them, then it was a prayer between him and them alone.

***

“Have you moved at all?” Parmak asked as he entered the room that evening and found Garak perched on the visitor’s chair as he had been at each check-in.

“Several times,” Garak said.

“Have you done anything but watch him?”

Garak shrugged.

“Come, Councilor. It is time to go.”

“I can stay.”

Parmak sighed. “Don’t make me do this again.”

Garak looked up at him in surprise. “I am not making you do anything, Dr. Parmak.”

“You are not caring for yourself.”

“Which does not make you do anything, on balance.”

“ _Elim_ ,” Parmak hissed, suddenly frustrated beyond measure. Garak’s eyeridges spiked at the impassioned use of his first name here in Parmak’s professional space. “I am already unsure if I have lost one husband. Do not make me have to care for two.”

Garak studied him a moment. “I cannot betray him again,” he said in a low voice.

Parmak reached out briefly, let his hand fall. “It was not you who betrayed him.”

Garak said nothing.

“Come home, Garak. I promise, I have the hospital on heightened awareness to keep an eye on them both and the sitter will return as soon as we leave.”

“A doctor vouched for him six months ago, yet he was still lost.”

“He was.” Parmak waited while Garak weighed the situation before standing at last, crossing to the bed, and resting a hand on Julian’s head briefly before following Parmak out.

They did not speak on the journey home, but Kelas felt Garak’s hand drift against his a few more times than was strictly probable. They ate a perfunctory dinner, neither truly interested in the meal. A chime of an incoming message sounded as Garak cleared the table and Kelas went to check. “It’s the physiological files,” he called excitedly back to Garak and he settled himself in to read.

After an hour, Garak brought him a cup of tea. After three, Garak came and tapped on Kelas’ shoulder. “Kelas,” he said gently.

“Mmm?”

“It is time for bed, Kelas.”

“I haven’t finished reading—”

“Kelas.”

Kelas turned his chair and looked up into Garak’s face. “Is it late?” he asked.

“Late enough.” Garak extended a hand to help pull Kelas out of his chair. The two stood for a moment, Kelas wincing as his joints protested having not moved for so long. Garak reached out to tuck a strand of hair behind Kelas’ ear and cupped his chin. “Are you really so unsure about Julian?” he asked.

Kelas sighed and put a hand up to cover Garak’s. “It is early yet, Elim. When he wakes, I will have a better answer for you.”

Garak leaned forward and kissed him lightly. “When,” he agreed.

***

Though it had only been a few days, Parmak felt that they had already slipped into a routine—waking into the careful avoidance of mentioning Julian’s absence, preparing for the day with subdued banter, and arriving at the hospital for Parmak to begin his rounds and Garak to take up his unflinching post of observer at Julian’s feet. It felt…wearying, in a way Parmak wasn’t quite able to describe even to himself. Yet they went through it and Parmak left Garak with Julian and Shannon to do his work, the back of his mind constantly returning to that small double room and its strange human occupants.

“Dr. Parmak,” came a voice, breathless and loud, preceding the nurse who owned it into Parmak’s office. “Dr. Parmak, please come with me.”

Parmak looked up from his patient charts and felt his heart skip a beat. “Is it--?”

“The human woman is awake,” the nurse interrupted.

Parmak’s heart lurched in a much different direction and he set aside his charting to hurry after the nurse. He asked of the woman’s welfare and general state as they walked so that Parmak was as caught up as he could be when he entered the room, smoothing his hair back and settling his scrubs into something closer to professional dignity.

The human woman— _Shannon_ , Parmak reminded himself—was sitting up, the restraints still attached to her wrists, her fists flexing within the bonds.

“Shannon?” Parmak said as the nurses backed away from the bed. “Is your name Shannon?”

The sightless eyes turned toward him; _likely not blind from birth, then_ , Parmak noted to himself. “I am Shannon,” the woman agreed. “Have I missed the group meeting? I did not mean to oversleep.” She gestured with the bonds.

Parmak took a moment to process that she thought they were punishment, and a heartbeat to let a flare of anger flash through him that this would seem normal to her. “Nurse, please remove the restraints,” he said, slipping into Kardasi as he turned to Garak, who still sat vigil. “Councilor Garak, would you please come translate?” He cursed the lingering xenophobia of his people that they didn’t have anything like a Universal Translator here at the heart of a dead empire that couldn’t afford to pretend they were superior anymore.

Garak flicked his eyes at Parmak, at Shannon, and lastly over Julian before standing and joining Parmak at Shannon’s bedside. “Shannon, my name is Garak. Do you understand me?”

Shannon shrank into herself as her hands were freed. “The other language isn’t Standard. We aren’t supposed to speak anything that isn’t Standard.”

“Shannon, I appreciate your adherence to the rules,” said Garak in the tone Parmak usually heard him use with other politicians—gentle but leading. “We are, however, no longer on the Parallel Organization’s ship.”

If anything, Shannon tensed even further. “Where?” she said after a moment.

“You are on Cardassia Prime,” answered Garak.

“No,” said Shannon, “no, I can’t be, I have to be on the ship, I have to finish my treatment, I have to make sure they know I understand, I have to be there, you have to take me back.” She began to rock back and forth, her arms wrapped around herself.

“Shannon, my name is Dr. Parmak,” said Parmak in Kardasi, listening to Garak’s translation tripping along behind, “We met briefly when you were last awake, do you remember?” 

“We _can’t speak other languages_ ,” said Shannon, and Parmak didn’t really need Garak interpreting to understand that Kardasi was going to be off the table for the foreseeable future. Limited Standard it was, then.

“Shannon, I hear you. I will speak what you want,” said Parmak, the sounds feeling strange in his mouth.

She quieted somewhat, but her body did not loosen. “I have to go back to the ship.”

Parmak took a deep breath. “There is no more ship,” he said.

Shannon’s head swung up. “What?”

Parmak looked up at Garak to fill in the more complicated description.

“Shannon,” said Garak, “the ship was destroyed.”

Shannon froze. “How am I here?”

“Do you remember meeting me, Shannon?” asked Garak. “You—you were in a small room. I opened the door and you followed me.”

“That was you?” Shannon asked.

“That was me.”

“The meditation room.”

“Is that what it was called?”

“The ship is gone?”

“Gone,” confirmed Garak. He watched Shannon process this.

“Do you swear?”

Garak looked at Parmak quizzically before answering. “Yes, Shannon. Dr. Parmak and I both watched it explode.”

Years of practice and precedent pushed Parmak into action before he was even fully aware of it. He grabbed a nearby bowl to put under Shannon just as she leaned forward and vomited fiercely. Parmak looped his fingers through her hair and pulled the tie out of his own braid to fasten hers as she continued to empty her stomach. Garak took several steps back, closing his eyes briefly to strengthen himself.

“There, Shannon, there we go,” said Parmak in soothing terms, catching himself before rubbing her back and settling for making sure her hair didn’t escape the makeshift short ponytail. When she quieted, he handed the bowl to a nurse and handed Shannon a cloth and cup of water, guiding her fingers around it. She wiped her face but hesitated with the drink.

“It’s water,” said Garak, reading the fear in her body. “There is nothing else in it. Dr. Parmak will never give you anything without telling you first.”

She tilted her head and tapped the fluid lines leading to her.

“Ah,” said Parmak, “those are—” he struggled to find the Standard word, “vitamins.”

“Of course,” she said.

“Do you feel drugged?” Parmak asked, wincing at the bluntness that his lack of vocabulary forced.

She considered. “I feel tired,” she said.

“Drink the water,” Parmak said. He watched her face fall into resignation before she lifted the cup and drank, swishing the liquid around and grimacing at the sensation.

Parmak grabbed a padd from the shelf beside her bed and pointed at the document to show Garak what he needed to know.

“Shannon,” said Garak, nodding at Parmak, “do you have a last name?”

“Is it not in the records?”

“The records, to the best of my knowledge, did not survive the destruction of the ship.”

She took in a deep breath. “Did anyone else?”

Parmak wished he could reach back and take hold of Garak’s hand, but he held himself still. He had understood her question, if not everything that preceded it.

“Julian Bashir is here in this room as well,” Garak said.

“Julian?” Shannon called.

“He has not awakened yet.”

“Julian?” Shannon called again, lifting her blanket and moving to get out of the bed.

“Shannon, you are not well—” Parmak began, but Shannon ignored him as she began to pull on the lines connecting her to the monitors and fluid intakes. “Shannon, no,” said Parmak. He took hold of one of her wrists and she flinched backward. He immediately let go. “I’m sorry,” he said, “but you can’t walk.”

“I understand,” she said, shrinking back into the bed, her voice retreating into the monotonous blank tone.

Parmak pursed his lips in frustration. He tapped a new screen open on the padd and typed out what he wished to say, showing it to Garak.

“What Dr. Parmak means is that you are not well enough to move about,” said Garak, nodding to Parmak, “not that you are not allowed to see Julian. Would you like to?”

Parmak threw Garak a look for going off-script, but Garak understood the need to verify.

Shannon nodded and Parmak sighed, typing out a new thing.

“Shannon, may Dr. Parmak and the nurses touch you to be able to unhook you from the monitors?”

Shannon tilted her head and Parmak had the momentary impulse to laugh at how like Garak the gesture seemed. “Only the doctor,” she said.

Parmak nodded to his nurses to back up. “Thank you, Shannon,” he said, clumsily narrating what he was doing as he went. When she was sufficiently detached, he hesitated. “I help?” he asked.

“Would you be comfortable leaning on Dr. Parmak?” Garak elaborated.

Shannon hesitated, then nodded. Parmak guided her hand to his arm and eased her out of the bed. She jumped as his loose hair swung over her skin and threaded her fingers in it. “Cardassians don’t have long hair,” she said.

“Dr. Parmak does,” Garak said. “It’s a…quirk of his. It’s fully white, and he usually keeps it braided.”

“But you gave the tie to me,” Shannon completed. She twirled a few strands around her finger and Parmak patiently let her. She seemed to be considering something but decided against it. “Julian?” she asked.

Parmak led her forward to the other bed, raising her hand and resting it on Julian’s shoulder. She let her fingers splay up his neck and over his face, reading his features before collapsing onto his chest, hugging him tightly. Parmak and Garak exchanged a look.

“No one else?” she asked as she stood up, wiping away tears.

“No one,” Garak confirmed, not looking at Parmak or Julian.

“My last name is Okeke, and I would like to go back to sleep now.”

Parmak guided her back to her bed and tucked her in. “I would like to reattach the monitors, but if you are not comfortable I will not do so,” he said through Garak.

Shannon shrugged, already falling back to sleep. “Monitor away,” she said.

Parmak reconnected the bio measurements but left any nutrient drips disconnected. “Garak,” he said in Kardasi, turning away to make sure Shannon didn’t hear as the nurses took the new readings, “you have to teach me Standard.”

“You already know it.”

“I know a little of it.” He lowered his voice. “Starting tonight, we speak Standard at home. I won’t be fluent anytime soon, but I have to be able to hold better than basic conversations and I don’t want to have to rely solely on you.”

Garak looked at him, studying, wishing he could reach out and push back the white hair cascading over Parmak’s shoulder. “Then I will teach you Standard,” he said, and Parmak nodded his thanks.

***

The next few days flowed into each other as Parmak continued to work and Garak delved into hesitant and halting conversations with Shannon, punctuated by bouts of exhausting sickness that Parmak assured them both was Shannon’s body purging the drugs that were no longer being renewed. Julian had begun to thrash and sweat in his unconsciousness until Parmak agreed to keep him medically sedated while they synthesized what they could for his withdrawal. Shannon had reacted badly to the volume of their Kardasi argument in the hall over that decision and Garak had been soothing her when Parmak put Julian under. After six days, Garak marveled at the way his interrogator’s skills worked to get the information he needed while actually making Shannon trust him, somehow. Parmak said he was not surprised.

Garak did not want to consider how Parmak felt about this use of his skillset.

“I was there before him, you know,” Shannon said to Garak as she toyed with her lunch, still unable to keep most food down. Parmak had taken the information Ezri had sent and created a nutrition regimen better suited than Cardassian food to Shannon’s needs, but that didn’t do much for the taste or her long-term fear of drugged meals.

“By a long time?” Garak asked.

Shannon shrugged. “I lost track of time. It felt long, I think. I was already blind by then, which made everything feel longer.”

It was the first time she had brought up her blindness and Garak breathed slowly, not wanting to push too hard. “You were not blind before?”

“No.” Shannon’s lips curved in a small smile. “I was a dancer, once. Julian said he had dated a dancer. He was so angry about my being blind, at first. He’s a doctor, right?”

Garak nodded before realizing the mistake. “Yes, he is,” he confirmed.

“He wanted to heal me, once he found out I hadn’t been born blind.”

Garak’s chest ached with the affectionate smile on his own face that yes, of course Julian would see someone in any kind of pain or affliction and want to help. Garak waited.

“Thank you for not asking how,” Shannon said, reading the silence correctly, “although I know you and Dr. Parmak want to know.”

“Dr. Parmak would also like to help,” Garak said. “He and Julian have…similar hearts about that.”

“He can’t help.”

“What makes you say that?”

“It was—” Shannon stiffened, closing her eyes. Garak had come to recognize this as a conditioning failure, a moment when the ethos drummed into her slammed into her desire to speak against it. He laid his hand on the bed next to her, his fingertips just brushing her thumb, and as expected she grabbed his hand and held on tightly. He had realized that the physical, grounding presence he provided overrode the fear of his scaled skin against her smoothness. Parmak had said that the commitment to allowing her to hold his hand if she needed it but never to grab her hand first was an incredible kindness. Garak had responded that it only made sense, and Parmak’s smile had been tender enough to make Garak look away.

“It was a treatment that went—wrong,” Shannon said after several moments, her hand still painfully tight on Garak’s. “The tools…malfunctioned when I…fought, in the second month. They tore my eyes. One of the doctors stopped the bleeding; Julian said that the healing they had done was poor work. So you see,” she said, a forced smile not changing the skin around her clouded eyes, “Dr. Parmak would not only have to fix the injury but also the previous attempt to fix the injury.”

Garak rubbed a thumb lightly over the back of her hand. “Did Julian tell you that it couldn’t be done?”

Shannon turned her head away, biting her lip. “No. He said if he had the right tools, maybe…But then he stopped asking how I was feeling, stopped talking about what he could do when you came for him, and I knew they had torn him, too.”

“He talked about us coming for him?” Garak asked before he could stop himself. It was the first she had mentioned Julian discussing his own life.

“All the time, at first. Most of us do. Did.” She pulled her hand out of Garak’s. “I think I’m going to sleep more.” She turned away from him, curling into a ball, careful not to jostle the monitors still attached to her, and Garak knew she did not sleep.

***

“Kelas, come to bed,” Garak said to Kelas’ temple as he pulled Kelas’ shoulders back away from the monitor.

“Standard, Elim,” Kelas said.

“Come to bed,” Garak dutifully repeated in Standard.

“Not yet.”

“Kelas, it’s been a week of you working the full day and then coming home to sequence and study and fall asleep at your desk. Come to bed.”

“'Se-quence'?”

Garak gave him the Kardasi equivalent and Kelas rolled it over in his mouth.

"That wasn’t meant to be an invitation to a language lesson,” Garak said in Kardasi.

“Standard!”

“No, Kelas.” Garak pulled Kelas’ chair away from the desk and knelt in front of him, taking both his hands and intertwining their fingers. “I know you want to be able to speak with him when he wakes, and you will, but I speak Standard with Shannon all day. I—I need to hear our tongue from you. Please.”

Kelas studied him a moment. “ _nu ka hemb’I_ ,” he said quietly. “Kardasi it is.”

Garak sighed at the familiar cadence. “Do you remember asking me not to make you lose both your husbands?”

Kelas nodded.

“I ask the same of you,” Garak said. “You have not worked this hard since the first months after the Fire and you were beyond exhausted then. Please.” He released one hand to card his fingers through Kelas’ hair. “Do not wear yourself out.”

“It’s been a full octal,” Kelas said. “Dr. Lomak is taking him off sedation tonight.”

Garak’s fingers tightened against Kelas’ aural ridge in surprise.

“The withdrawal will continue, but we both agreed that it’s better for him to face what remains of it consciously. His mind is far more at risk than his body at this point.”

“Will he wake tonight?”

Kelas’ head swayed in a gesture of uncertainty. “I doubt it, but I do not know.”

Garak bit back his fear that Julian would wake to strangers, his anger that such a thing had been left to chance.

“Given how he reacted to us on the ship, _ss’lei_ , I don’t think we would be altogether more comforting than the nurses for the first waking,” Kelas said, reading Garak’s tension anyway.

“Shannon continues making progress,” Garak said, veering away from the subject.

“She does indeed. We still don’t know which race she was being taught to avoid?”

Garak shook his head. “I’ve narrowed it down to the Vulcans, Trill, or Acamarians,” he said.

“Such a short list!” said Kelas. “And in so short a time! I am impressed.”

“One only needs to know how to listen.” Garak grimaced slightly, dropping his eyes to Kelas’ chest.

“It is a useful skill,” Kelas said, tipping Garak’s face back up to his with a finger under his chin. “Especially when in the service of healing.” He waited until Garak met his gaze before leaning forward and kissing him lightly, tipping their _ChUfa_ together and breathing into the small space between them.

“I will doubt in the night,” Garak said.

“And I will doubt in the day,” Parmak completed. It had become a prayer between them, almost, holy in its reassurance that they would not both be lost to the shadows still wreathed around their beloved. “Yes, Elim. Thank you. It is time for bed, indeed.” He stood, his back popping with the movement, and hand-in-hand they headed toward their room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy November! Happy All Saints Day! ¡Feliz día de los Muertos! I hope everyone survived Halloween in one piece and, to my American readers, know that I'm thinking of you as we head into election week. May all the saints preserve us.
> 
> The Kardasi snippet here means "I hear/am hearing you." Many thanks to tinsnip and Cardassian_Kisses, as ever, for their work in creating Kardasi for me to steal.


	6. Chapter 6

Garak was late to the hospital the next day after having to detour into the office and reassure himself (though he would say it was for the others in his office) that Cardassia had not fallen in his absence. Parmak didn’t point out the reality as they parted for the morning, recognizing Garak’s need for control in _something_ as Julian continued to sleep and Shannon continued to flinch at their conversation and touch. He was glad of the memory of Garak’s scales on his the night before as he checked in on the pair of patients; the faint scratches down his back that rubbed against his hospital tunic grounded him in the reality of their continued relationship, in the hope of re-integrating Julian.

They missed him, he and Garak both. Although Parmak and Garak had known each other longer and had had time to outline a relationship before Julian’s arrival on Cardassia, there was no question that Julian was the vibrant heart of their triad. His enthusiasm had pulled them all through the unending sorrow after the Fire, reminding the two Cardassians of light that didn’t burn, of air that didn’t choke.

 _You doubt in the night, and I will doubt in the day_. Julian had rarely doubted at all—and then, only doubted himself. What if he doubted that it was worth it to come back to them?

Parmak shook his head, refusing to consider such enormous loss, and began his rounds for the morning. 

***

“There is no longer anything but the monitors,” Shannon announced as Garak arrived and made his now-customary noise of settling into his vigil. He had discovered that telling her what was going on in a room frustrated her, but his usual habit of silently moving into a room terrified her. The compromise of his being loud as he entered and shifted the chair to sit down seemed to work for both of them, though Garak’s training shuddered at it.

“Are you pleased with that?” Garak answered.

“I am.”

“I am glad. How is your head?” Some of the fluids and medicines that had been flowing into Shannon’s veins had been to counteract the pain from her poorly-healed eyes that she still refused to let Dr. Parmak correct. Garak wondered if she was holding out for Julian to be able to do it and hoped not, as it might be a long while indeed before Julian was up to such delicate surgery.

Shannon shrugged. “It’s been worse.” She toyed with her blanket for a moment and Garak waited, knowing she had more to tell him and glad that she felt he was one she could tell. “We’re on Cardassia, right?”

“We are.”

“Prime?”

"Yes. Do you know much about the Union?”

“It’s very far from Trill,” she said softly.

Garak allowed himself a small smile at his guess having been correct before letting his face return to neutral to keep it out of his voice. “Not so far as we are from Vulcan. Trill is really just over the Federation border.”

“And all the disputed space in between.”

“And that,” Garak granted. “How long has it been since you were last on Trill?”

Shannon tightened momentarily and then took several deep breaths. She was listening to Parmak on how to handle the conditioning, then; good. “Maybe…a year?” she hazarded.

Garak pondered whether to be direct with her in his next question, but she saved him the trouble.

“I was supposed to be visiting my sister.” Shannon stared sightlessly at the blanket she was twisting in her fingers and Garak waited, knowing that stories told themselves at their own paces. A part of his mind turned back to its monitoring of Julian as the human twitched in his sleep.

“She said she wanted me to come see her, on Earth; I hadn’t seen my niece and nephews since they were children, she said, and I was tired of pointing out that it was she who had cut ties with me when I married, that—that she was the one who decided I had chosen Miagu over my own people.”

Garak filed away the name to ask Ezri later.

“But our ship was intercepted—was met by…I don’t know, Garak, I don’t remember what happened. But I think…I think she gave me to…them. She always thought she was head of the family after our parents died just because she was so much older, and I guess—well, I guess she wanted to help me. I was wrong, after all, I see that I was wrong.”

“No, Shannon,” Garak interrupted gently, “you were not wrong.”

Shannon’s face twisted as she fought with the messaging that had so literally been carved into her. “I—they were just trying to help wayward people like me.”

Garak’s hands curled into fists and he wanted to blow up the ship again, and again, and again, but instead he breathed deeply in, out. “Did they tell you why you were wayward?”

“It is right for humans to be with our own kind.”

“And Miagu was not your own kind.”

Shannon jerked and Garak sat upright, tense and ready for whatever might come next. “He was Trill,” she said, “and Trill have _worms_ in their _stomachs_ , it was a _defilement_ and I was _wrong_ to—to love—” She began to rock, her breathing coming short and fast.

“Shannon, I’m going to sit on the bed with you,” said Garak as he shifted himself slowly onto the very edge. “Shannon, may I hold your hand?” She continued to rock, her fingers twisting into the blanket.

“Please don’t send me to the meditation room,” she whispered, “I promise I will learn.”

Garak couldn’t tell whether his sorrow or his rage was stronger at the moment; both threatened to choke him on the spot as he reached out and brushed the very tips of his fingers against the back of her hand. She flinched, as she often did, at the sensation of cool skin that was so decidedly not human.

“You are not my own kind,” she said, her voice strained.

“No,” he agreed. “I am Cardassian. Do you remember asking me about growing up on Cardassia a few days ago?”

Shannon’s brow furrowed in concentration.

"I told you about the moons, and the way the _regnar_ lizards blend into the sand as though they’re invisible. You told me about cha-me-le-ons.” His tongue tripped over the unfamiliar word.

“And you wanted to see one,” Shannon responded. “You were surprised they’re usually small.”

“And you told me about Ko-mo-do dragons.”

“That are much bigger.” Shannon’s breathing began to slow and her hands relaxed a fraction. “Garak, _I want them out of my head_.”

“I know, Shannon,” Garak said softly. “Is it helping that I am also there?”

She nodded, reaching out, and he placed his hand in hers as she squeezed. “I like your voice,” she said. “I bet you’re every bit as handsome as Julian said.”

Garak’s eyes widened in surprise at the shift. “Thank you, my dear,” he said. “I am quite flattered.”

She hesitated before asking, “May I touch your face?”

“To see it?”

She nodded.

“You may,” Garak said. “Thank you for asking.” He guided the hand holding his to his jaw.

"Oh!” she said, her fingers catching as they ran up Garak’s aural ridge. “I never thought they were raised.”

“Have you met a Cardassian before?”

“No. I’ve seen pictures, but—they feel like little mountain ranges.” Garak smiled at the comparison and she traced the lines it created on his cheeks, circling the ridges around his eyes and following the lines up his forehead. She drew her hand to the top of Garak’s _ChUfa_ and he gently stopped her by the wrist before she could trail into the indentation.

“Did I do something wrong?”

“No, Shannon, you have not done anything wrong. This,” he guided her hand around the teardrop outline, “is sensitive to me.”

“Would it hurt for me to touch it?”

“No. It…it would be like the skin under your jaw.” His mind unhelpfully supplied the moment of Julian making that first comparison, the moment of Julian kissing the softer skin, tonguing the surrounding ridge—he squashed the memory. “It is a little more sensitive.”

Shannon nodded and he brought her hand to the other side of his face, letting her outline the ridge around his eye and the one crossing his nose. Her fingers trailed over his lips to the thin ridges curling away from each other on his chin and the careful study almost made him shudder in recollection of other human hands, bronze rather than dark brown, learning his face in attentive delight. He closed his eyes and leaned into the feeling.

“You miss him,” Shannon said, and Garak blinked his eyes open.

“What makes you say that?”

“You’re frowning.” She traced over the edges of his lips, the muscles of his cheeks. “Are you remembering him?”

“Yes.”

“He loved you.”

It was an unexpected knife in Garak’s heart to hear her say it in the past tense. “As you loved Miagu?”

It was a low blow and he felt her tense against his skin. He reached up and gently closed her hands in his, rubbing light and soothing circles into her palms.

“Garak, are we safe?” she said, leaning into him and whispering conspiratorially.

“Very,” Garak murmured back.

Her voice was so low that Garak almost missed it as she said, “I still love him.”

“I am glad to hear it,” Garak responded, and her hands closed around his in the shared secret that was no secret at all.

A thump and thrashing came suddenly from Julian’s bed and Garak let Shannon go as he stood abruptly and crossed the room. Julian was awake, his eyes unfocused and unseeing. “This isn’t right,” he said, “this isn’t right, I went to my room, I promise I went…”

Garak hit the call button above the bed and hurriedly told the nurse who came in to find Parmak.

“ _NO_ ,” said Julian, scrunching himself into the top corner of his bed and burying his head in his knees, “they aren’t real, they aren’t real, they aren’t real.”

“Julian,” said Garak in Standard, “Julian, you are on Cardassia Prime.”

“Stop, please stop,” Julian begged whatever phantoms he was battling, “please, I’ve promised to get better, get better be better, get better be better.”

“Julian, it’s—it’s Garak.”

“He isn’t coming for me—he’s better off, he and Parmak are better off, this is better, it was unhealthy, I know I was wrong, please, please go away.”

“We weren’t better off,” Garak said, hating the pleading note in his voice, knowing that trying to talk sense into Julian at this moment was utterly foolish, being absolutely unable to stop doing so. “Julian, we were never better off without you.”

“But Garak lies, he lies to everyone, I should never have gone to him.”

The twinned sorrow and rage closed their fingers around Garak’s heart again and he ignored them, shoved them down as Parmak burst into the room with a flustered, “Julian?”

“Parmak?” asked Julian, his eyes glazed as he tried to focus. “Parmak, you—you shouldn’t be here, you can’t be here, you and Garak are happy together, you don’t need me.”

“Julian, do you know where you are?”

“I’m at the Healing Center, I have—I have an appointment with Michael, I can’t be here, I have to prove to Michael that I understand, I understand even when they put me in the meditation room, it’s for my own good.”

Garak felt rather than heard Parmak’s sudden inhale of shock at the phrase. “Julian,” Parmak said, and his voice caught.

“Dr. Bashir,” Garak tried instead, briefly reaching one hand to Parmak’s and squeezing it, _I heard it, too_ , and the single squeeze back, _I am glad you are here._ “Dr. Bashir, can you tell me what your body is doing right now?”

Julian frowned. “I—it’s—” One of the nurses reached forward to adjust a monitor and brushed against him. “NO!” he shouted, curling further into himself, “no, no, no, please go away, please, no,” and his begging devolved into sobs that hitched in his chest as he pulled futilely at his restraints.

A crash sounded behind Garak and Parmak and they turned to see Shannon standing over the fallen chair Garak had abandoned. “Julian?” she said, trying to follow the sounds. “Julian, it’s Shannon.”

“Shannon?” Julian’s hiccupping breaths slowed. “Shannon, are you—are you here?” 

“I’m here, Julian.” Parmak stepped aside to guide her to the bed, placing her hand in Julian’s. “Julian, we’re not at the Center.”

Julian gaped at her. “But they—but how—”

“Your husbands, Julian. You were right. They came for you.”

He looked beyond her at Garak and Parmak standing still as pillars as they let the humans reconnect. “I showed you my puzzle,” Julian said, his voice slow.

“You did,” Garak answered. “It was human art.”

“Vincent van Gogh,” Julian answered. “But you felt so unreal, so far away.”

“Julian,” said Parmak, “the—the things in your system—”

“They were drugging me.”

“Yes.”

Julian looked back to Shannon and gently ran a hand over her forehead. “Your eyes are still clouded.”

“I haven’t let Dr. Parmak try to fix them.”

Julian leaned in, pressing his forehead against hers, and Garak’s breath caught at the recognition of the _anshwar_ with these two _ChUfa_ -less humans. “Shannon,” Julian whispered, “is this real?”

She nodded, wrapping her hands around his. “Your husbands blew up the ship, Julian. It is gone.”

Julian shook his head, pulling away from her. “Parmak would never—Garak?” He looked again at the two Cardassians. “You blew up the ship?”

“I did.”

“And we were the only two you rescued?”

Garak said nothing and Julian closed his eyes. “But you—you gave that up. You should not—you would not have done that for me.”

“Julian, I would have done whatever it took for you.” The bluntness of it surprised Garak and Parmak both.

Julian shook his head. “I—Shannon, they told me they were better off.”

“I know, Julian. But I think maybe your husbands didn’t agree.”

Pain, weariness, and confusion swirled over Julian’s face and Garak almost wept with joy at the life of them replacing the vacant blankness he remembered from the station. He did not wish such emotion on his beloved doctor, but to know that he was still capable of it, that Garak could still read it as easily as a favorite book, soothed him.

“I think we will leave a while and let you two talk,” said Parmak. “All of us.”

The nurses nodded and left. “Garak, will—will you help me?” Shannon asked, gesturing to the bed as Julian scooted aside. Garak aided her to curl in beside Julian and set the bed so that they could sit comfortably.

“Julian—”

“Elim,” interrupted Parmak softly. He held out a hand and Garak ignored it for a moment.

“Julian, we never stopped looking for you.”

Julian held his gaze, his eyes troubled, before he swallowed and looked down at Shannon, and Garak allowed Parmak to lead him out of the room.

***

That night, in two separate beds, two pairs twined around each other. In one, the mottled grey and white scales held tightly to the slate body shaking with unvoiced sobs, hands held closely together as the sibilant consonants of Kardasi ran in a soothing river that did not stop either’s tears. In the other, shades of brown shifted under low hospital lighting as nightmares chased themselves across the minds whose whispers in Standard reassured over and over.

None of the four slept all that much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So now all of our characters are in play, huzzah! Let the healing begin!
> 
> Also, you may have noticed that the chapter count jumped like a frog; I would apologize for that, but this is what we all get when I start posting a story while I'm still writing it. These folks have lots of scar tissue to work through, y'all.
> 
> (Also, happy day to my fellow Americans; breathe deeply and gear up, there is so much work to do. Garashir and Lovely Parmak believe in us!)


	7. Chapter 7

Parmak stood with Garak outside the hospital door, each looking drawn and weary. “You have to give him time, Elim,” Parmak said.

Garak cut his eyes to the nearby desk, an instinctive habit at the personal use of his name as though most of the hospital didn’t already know they were enjoined, that Parmak had every right to use the address. “I know.”

“I know that you know for his sake, but do you know for yours?”

“Doctor, I have no use for this second-guessing.”

Parmak’s mouth tightened. “Do not be angry with me because you cannot be angry at them.”

Garak sighed. “I apologize.”

Parmak laid a hand on Garak’s shoulder, barely brushing against the ridge under the fabric. “Do not take his fear personally.”

Garak smiled with all teeth and no joy. “Since when have I ever let another’s fear stop me, Dr. Parmak?” Not wanting to face the flash of memory in Parmak’s eyes, Garak entered the room and closed the door between them. Julian and Shannon were asleep in each other’s arms, Julian twitching lightly. Garak’s chest ached with the memory of Julian’s heat, of the nightmares he had helped chase out of Julian’s long limbs. He buried the thought and began his usual ritual of dragging the chair across the floor, making noise to wake Shannon. It worked for her—but Julian woke with a muffled scream and sat bolt upright. Garak stopped dead.

“Julian!” said Shannon, grabbing for his hands and holding them tightly. “Julian, it’s okay, it’s okay—that’s Garak. It’s how he lets me know he’s here. Julian, we’re all right.”

The wild look in Julian’s eyes stilled little by little as he focused on Shannon. “It’s okay?”

“It’s okay. It’s Garak.”

Julian’s brow furrowed. “It can’t be Garak.”

Shannon smiled. “Garak, are you here?”

“I am, Shannon.”

“There, you see?”

Julian looked over Shannon’s shoulder and his hands tightened on hers. “You’re not real.”

“I’m quite real, Julian.” Garak gripped the back of the chair so hard his fingers turned white as he struggled to keep his tone light, pleasant, unthreatening. “Do you remember waking yesterday?”

Julian processed for a moment. “Parmak was here.”

“He was indeed. He’s out on rounds at the moment, but I could have the nurses call him.”

“No,” Julian shook his head, “no. I—Garak, I—” He trailed off and looked at Shannon’s hands in his own, pushing her away suddenly. “Shannon, they’ll find you here.”

“Julian, there’s no ‘they’ to find anything,” she said. “We’re on Cardassia Prime.”

“I can’t be on Prime, I can’t—I’m not allowed to go back, I promised them, they—they’ll come for Elim and Kelas, I have to stay—”

Shannon tried to hold Julian’s hands again as he grew increasingly agitated and Garak stepped forward, stopped himself. “Doctor,” he said instead, “you never did finish telling me your thoughts on the Shoggoth tale I asked you to read.” The non sequitur surprised even him, but he continued as he saw Julian freeze. “We were to have a discussion that was, ah, rudely interrupted.”

“ _How could you know that_ ,” Julian hissed, his eyes narrowing. Shannon scooted back from the cold fury in Julian’s voice.

“Because I am real, Julian,” Garak said, his voice suddenly fierce. “I never stopped looking for you, not once, not from the moment Kelas pieced together your parents’ duplicity with Dr. Medek.” He neglected to elaborate on what had become of Medek once Garak saw the events he had helped set in motion to betray Julian. 

Medek was alive. He would never practice medicine of any kind again, but he was alive.

“I do not know what they told you,” Garak continued. “I have some idea of how they made you believe it.” Julian’s hands went to the tears and burns Garak could see in his mind’s eye under the hospital clothing and Garak paused, his voice catching. “I will do whatever it takes to help you believe that none of it is true. I—I love you, Julian, and I want you here, with me. With Kelas.”

Julian closed his eyes, shaking his head at nothing, and pulled his legs close to wrap his now-untethered arms around them. He rocked in silence and Garak wanted nothing more than to gather him into his embrace.

He stayed by the chair as Shannon reached out, as Shannon held him while he wept, and it took every ounce of the discipline Tain had etched into him for Garak not to throw the chair at the wall simply to see it shatter as much as his heart, jagged edges scattered on the floor.

***

The next several days set into a rhythm of Garak staying with the humans as he had with Shannon, speaking mostly with Shannon as Julian watched. He had forwarded her husband’s name to Ezri with the request that she make discreet inquiries about the possibility of reuniting them. Julian had not yet let anyone near him to mend the poorly-healed bones or regenerate the cuts and burns on his skin. The mere touch of a Cardassian sent him spiraling and Shannon alone could calm him again, human to human. Garak felt useless and awkward, exhausted by the unremitting use of Standard with the humans and at home with Parmak as he continued to gain ease in the language. It felt like being in exile again.

Garak hated it.

He hated everything about it. He hated how Julian was _right in front of him_ but barely recognized him, barely spoke to him, could have been back on DS9 for all the physical closeness he would allow. Parmak had stopped telling him to have patience, recognizing that patience wasn’t what Garak lacked. It was hope.

“What about your eyes, Shannon?” Julian was asking as Garak tuned back into the conversation. Shannon included him just often enough that Garak didn’t feel as though he was eavesdropping, but neither was it a conversation among equals.

“What about them?”

“If you’re going to go back to dancing, it will be easier if you can see.”

Garak remembered Shannon’s comment of Julian’s earlier dancing love. How strange that his type in women—lithe, strong, flexible—was so wildly different from his taste in men—Cardassian. But then, Garak supposed, Julian had never met a Cardassian dancer, so who’s to say he wouldn’t be interested?

If he could ever be interested in Cardassians again, that was.

“I can hear you thinking, Garak,” Shannon said, resting her head on her knee and looking in his general direction. 

“What intense thoughts I must be having, then,” Garak replied lightly.

“I have the feeling they’re always intense. Julian, is Garak always intense?”

Julian smiled a very small smile, looking down at the sheets he idly twisted through his fingers. “Most of the time. But it can be a very good intense.”

Garak felt warmth bloom in his chest, hesitant and strange. “My dear doctor,” he said, chasing the playful tone that had shaped so many of their lunch conversations over the years, “I am glad indeed of being able to be a ‘good’ intense.”

“Penny for your thoughts, Garak,” Shannon said.

“Only a penny? What a low price for intensity.”

Shannon chuckled. “Julian always said you had a dry sense of humor.”

“Did he, now?”

A spasm passed over Julian’s face; Garak recognized it as similar to Shannon’s battles against the voices in her mind, the drugs that would take another two octals at least to cycle fully out of her system—and she had quite the head start on Julian. “I meant it as a compliment."

"And I take it as such, Doctor.”

"Do you?” Julian stared at him, his gaze piercing. Julian had not held eye contact with him for this long and Garak felt almost shy under his ferocity. “Do you know how often I spoke of you, how many times I warned them of how badly you would hurt them? Do you know how much faith I had in you?”

“And it was merited, Julian,” Shannon cut in. “You’re here, aren’t you? He came for you, just like you said he would.”

Julian’s eyes faded again, the intensity turning inward. “And he hurt them, just like I said he would.”

Garak stiffened in his chair.

“I don’t fully remember,” Julian said, noticing the movement. “But I remember patches, sensations—the floor, I was walking through—” He swallowed and dropped his gaze at last, running the blanket through his fingers.

“Julian, I—” Garak stopped. He what? He could not deny the memory, or say that he regretted it.

“You came for me,” Julian said, his voice achingly small. “You came for me, and you didn’t let any of them stand in your way.”

Garak shook his head. “No, Julian. I didn’t.”

Julian raised his head. “But don’t you see, Garak? Now you have their blood on your hands, on the hands you were just starting to get clean. You had to revert to that—for what? For me? Didn’t you know I loved you enough to realize that you and Parmak were better off without me?”

Garak stood up abruptly and Julian flinched slightly. “ _We were never_ ,” Garak said, his voice low and shaking slightly. “I know they told you that, I know you have so much in you that is poison right now, but Kelas and I are—we are incomplete without you.”

“Why?” said Julian, his face full of loss and resignation. “You are with your own kind, Garak. The two of you are so good for each other, and able to understand each other in ways I never could. It’s best that you’re with your own kind, and that I’m with mine. I shouldn’t be here—I should leave. Really, it’s for your own good.”

Garak gaped at him, the phrase detonating between them, before turning around and leaving the room, the hospital, the man who was no longer his Julian behind him.

His sudden departure alarmed the nurses and his lack of answer to their questions even more so. Startled, one rushed into the room to check on the patients and found the pair still in Julian’s bed, the woman cradling the man as he silently sobbed in her arms repeating a mantra that at least now Elim would be safe.

***

“Dr. Parmak!” called a nurse as she burst into his office.

“Is everything all right?” Parmak stood at the interruption, a thousand possibilities running through his mind.

“Councilor Garak just left.”

“Was he summoned?”

“No, sir. He simply left. He said nothing to any of us.”

Parmak was already out the door, heading to the human’s room. “Have you checked in—”

"Yes, sir, Nurse Reyta is with them. There were no alarms on the monitors.”

Parmak quickened his step in answer and was soon in the room, taking in the broken human sobbing in Shannon’s arms. Reyta stepped to his side and said in a low voice, “I can’t get either of them to tell me what happened and Dr. Bashir is only repeating that ‘he’s safe,’ whatever that means. Councilor Garak said nothing at all to us as he left, but—forgive me for saying so, Dr. Parmak, but he looked horrible. He was so pale he was almost white and his eyes—I don’t even know how to describe it, but they made me shiver.” She bowed her head slightly. “I don’t mean to be impertinent, sir.”

“Thank you for the information, Reyta,” Parmak replied. “Would you both please give us a moment?”

The nurses hesitated briefly before nodding and exiting the room, pulling the door firmly shut behind them.

“Shannon, what happened?” Parmak asked clearly, letting his professional voice carry over the whispered litany of his husband.

“Is it just you now, Dr. Parmak?”

“It’s just me.”

“Julian told Garak that you and he were better off together without him, that—” She was cut off by Julian surging against her. She fell backwards with a cry of surprise, knocking into the rails around the bed. Parmak crossed the room in an instant and pulled Julian off of her, ignoring Julian’s shriek of protest at the Cardassian’s hands on him.

“Shannon, are you all right?” Parmak asked, his hand wrapped around Julian’s wrist to hold him at bay.

“You can’t tell him, Shannon, you can’t, you’ll ruin it! Don’t you see, it’s okay now! It’s for his own good!”

Parmak whipped around to Julian. “What did you say?”

Julian cowered and Parmak hated himself in that moment, almost losing his nerve, but something was terribly wrong and he had to understand before he went chasing off after Garak. “Julian Subatoi, _what did you say_?”

“I’m trying to protect him, Kelas, don’t you see? You two need to be together far away from here, far away from me, I will only slow you down, I’ll make you a target, they’ll come for you next, it’s better this way, it has to be better this way because I can’t watch you die, too, I can’t watch them take you both and you were happy, you’re happy with your own kind, it’s for your own—”

“Don’t you dare finish that statement, Julian,” Parmak interrupted, and Julian collapsed with a cry, his wrist still held in Parmak’s tight grip. “No, look at me. Julian, _look at me_.” 

Julian complied and Parmak immediately let go at the pain in his eyes. “Julian, is that what you said to Elim?”

Julian said nothing but absently rubbed his wrist. Parmak could see a bruise blooming floral under the brown skin.

“It was,” Shannon offered from behind him. “And I’m okay.”

Parmak could not stop the sob that bubbled out of him, barely stopped himself from cupping Julian’s face in his hands. “Julian, do you truly believe that?”

Julian looked away, his jaw tightening. “If he goes, you’ll go with him,” he said, his voice like a petulant child’s. “He went.”

“Why do you want us to go away?”

“How will you be safe otherwise?”

Parmak’s knees buckled and he reached for Garak’s abandoned chair, dragging it toward himself and collapsing into it. “Julian, we will figure that out. We will always figure that out, but if safety means being without you, it isn’t worth it.”

Julian continued to look away, kneading his bruised wrist. After several minutes of silence, Parmak turned to Shannon.

“Shannon, I need to go find E—Garak. Can you stay with Julian for me?”

“You didn’t even have to ask,” she said.

“Thank you.” He stood and reached out a hand, let it drop. “Julian, I’m—I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Will you allow me to heal the bruise?”

Julian shook his head. Parmak was unsurprised. “I will be back once I find Elim.”

“I wanted you to be happy,” Julian whispered.

Parmak sighed. “I know, Julian.” He looked again at the battered man before leaving, telling his nurses to keep an eye on the humans and the rest of his patients as he set out to seek his broken-hearted husband.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....if it helps, they are also breaking my heart, so we're in this together.


	8. Chapter 8

“I am very glad that you’re predictable in at least one part of your life,” Kelas said as he approached the still, grey figure amidst the rock shapes.

“He is dead, Kelas,” Garak responded in Kardasi as Kelas joined him in front of Mila’s monument.

“He is _not_ dead, Elim,” said Kelas, following Garak into their native tongue. “But he is very, very hurt.”

“He said—”

“It was for our own good. Yes, I know. I talked to him.”

“You did?”

Kelas grimaced. “After a fashion.”

Garak turned to him in question.

“You’re not the only one who can hurt others to get information, Elim.”

Garak’s eyeridges rose in query and surprise.

"But I know what he said. I also know that he was _trying_ to drive you off. He’s trying to protect us, Elim, to keep us away from him because he thinks that the Parallel Organization will come for us if we’re with him.”

Garak’s eyes darkened with fury. “I’d love to see them try.”

Kelas put a hand lightly on Garak’s arm to stay him. “You and I both know that won’t be happening, _but he doesn’t_. You—you’ve altered people’s minds before, Garak. You know how hard it is for people to find reality again once they’ve seen how malleable it can be.”

Garak pulled away from Kelas’ hand and walked toward another monument. Kelas followed quietly.

“He is broken beyond repair,” Garak said tonelessly.

“Hey,” said Kelas, grabbing Garak’s arm and stopping him, reaching up and cupping his face in the way he’d wanted to with Julian. “It is daytime. Daytime is _my_ doubting time, not yours.”

Garak didn’t smile. “What hope is there? If he can fling a phrase like that at _us_ , as though he _means_ it—”

“Did he? Did he also try to make you angry, say things that hurt? Have we not each done the same, lashed out to push each other away, to save the ones we love from the mess we’d become?”

“But Kelas, that phrase—”

“That phrase is the best ammunition he has, Elim,” Kelas interrupted again. “It is the thing we know frightens him most. Doesn’t it make sense that if he wanted us to be frightened enough to leave, he would use the thing that scares him beyond measure?”

Garak took a deep breath and put a hand on the monument in front of him, sagging into it for support. “Kelas,” he said.

Kelas reached out and Garak wrapped him into a fierce embrace, shaking without tears.

“My leave is over in two days, Kelas. How can I go back to work like this?”

Kelas ran a soothing hand up and down Garak’s spine. “Would it help if he were home?”

Garak pulled away slightly to look at him, eyeridges furrowed. “Would that help _him_?”

“He has to leave the hospital eventually, and I’d rather he do so while Shannon is here to help him transition.”

“You say that as if she’s going somewhere.”

“Isn’t that what you’re working toward by having Commander Dax seek her enjoined?”

“Yes, but I have no idea of that timeline.”

Kelas sighed. “What physical maladies Julian has left that I can treat, he won’t give me permission to heal. What mental maladies I can’t treat, time alone can, and time in a place he once called home is rather more conducive to that kind of healing than time in a sterile hospital, even if—or perhaps especially because—that is where he spends his professional life.”

Garak mulled the idea. “When can he be released?”

“Tomorrow, I should think. Dr. Lomak and I have already discussed it and she came to a similar conclusion. We also agreed that it can be my turn to take some time away from the hospital, now, so I can stay with them.”

“What if he doesn’t really come home, Kelas?”

“What did I say about the day?”

Garak didn’t respond to Kelas’ light playfulness and Kelas nodded. “I am choosing to take the fact that he is fighting with us to protect us as a good sign. He loves us, Elim; I am as sure of that now as I was when we said so in front of our gathered friends. They did not take that from him. But they have, for the moment, taken his ability to express that in any honest or healthy way.”

“So by the gods, we take it back?” asked Garak quietly.

Kelas smiled. “Absolutely.”

***

Neither of them went back to the hospital that day, though Kelas commed in to say he would be spending the day at home, that he had found Garak and to tell Julian and Shannon they were both unharmed. He and Garak spent the afternoon cleaning, re-arranging, and considering—Julian could not sleep with them but neither should he be totally alone, sharp objects should not be within easy reach, and the like. After a weary dinner, Kelas stood and invited Garak along with him. They kissed their way to bed, long touches full of promises neither knew if they could keep, and when they finally slept they were so entangled that the shades of grey and white seemed to blend into each other like ink in water, inextricably connected.

***

Discharging the two humans from the hospital had not been as disastrous as it could have been. Kelas could tell that Julian felt awkward in his workplace around his colleagues as the patient, the frail one. His own heart ached with the overlapping memories of working side by side with Julian here, the strong reassurance of Julian’s professional confidence set against this image of a Julian who flinched at everything, who held himself tightly as he followed the nurses to the waiting skimmer. The fear and discomfort trailed down every line of him and Kelas sighed to see the fierceness of his grip on Shannon’s hand. She, for her part, turned her head this way and that to hear and smell this planet that was utterly new to her. Kelas wasn’t sure if he was glad or not that she couldn’t actually see it; much of Prime was still in shambles and things like surviving a season without a minor epidemic were the bar of success these days. Sometimes Kelas caught himself longing for the beauty of Cardassia City with its graceful arches and warm stone. He would stop himself, then, and remember that many of the arches ended in sharp points, that the warm stone held cold people, and that nostalgia for a way of life that was sick at its core would do no good as they sifted through its rubble.

Julian had helped him to stay present as though even this could be beautiful. Garak may say that Kelas was an incurable optimist—everyone was, in comparison to Garak—but it was Julian who could look at anything and see hope, life, wonder.

Kelas watched him from across the skimmer as Julian’s eyes drifted over the landscape speeding past. Did he still have wonder? Did he still have hope?

 _I will doubt in the day_.

When they arrived at the home Garak, Kelas, and Julian shared, Kelas helped Shannon out of the skimmer and, cautiously, offered the same hand to Julian. The human hesitated, his fingers curling into his palm, before breathing deeply and grasping Kelas’ hand. Kelas swallowed, mindfully telling himself not to overreact, to keep the pressure light, and the connection was gone as soon as it had begun.

But Kelas knew this was a start.

“Tell me about it, Julian,” Shannon was saying. “Tell me what I would be seeing.”

“Well,” said Julian, “it’s a house. There are lots of rock formations out front, rocks of all shapes and sizes, that Garak built as a—as a memorial to the ones who died in the retaliation by the Dominion. It’s like a rock forest, almost, but with a lot more…grief. The healing kind.”

“You live with a graveyard?”

“Kind of,” Julian said. “More like a temple.”

Kelas smiled behind them at the descriptor as the builder himself opened the door just ahead of them.

“Garak,” said Julian, slowing his pace, his voice filled with caution.

“Doctor,” returned Garak, his own tone closed and impersonally friendly. “Welcome home.”

Julian eyed him curiously and Kelas watched the unspoken battle between them. He had seen it often, this holdover from the years of sparring over lunch they had described to him, where both knew they were fighting but neither could give up ground. Normally he delighted in their sharpness, their passion.

Today he was just tired.

"Shall we go in?" Kelas said. “Shannon, I’m sure you’d be glad to hear about how we do not actually live _in_ the ‘temple.’”

He led her inside, making sure she didn’t stumble over the low threshold, and Julian followed. 

“We’re in the main living room,” Julian said to Shannon. “There—well, there are a lot of padds here, since all of…all of us like to read.” Kelas watched him carefully, saw the memories rolling over his face. Were they good memories, of literature debates and lazy days lounging together, of coming home to be kissed and stretching out on their couches? Or were they only the memories of seeing his parents at the door, of trying to hold Garak together as the walls in his mind closed in on him, of the days where there was too much death and not enough break in the dust?

“And there’s….” Julian trailed off and Kelas realized where his eyes had fallen. Julian crossed to the shelf where Kukalaka sat, guardian of their sizable library. Garak took a step forward and Kelas reached out to stop him, grasping his hand tightly as Julian picked up the ragged bear and stroked its head tenderly.

Kelas would never understand how he’d known, but Garak was already in motion as Julian simply collapsed where he stood, curling around the bear as his body convulsed in silent sobs.

“Julian?” asked Shannon, lost amidst the sudden quiet. Kelas went to her and murmured for her to wait a moment as he watched Garak kneel next to Julian and fold him into himself, holding the slender human as he held the bear crushed against his chest.

“Julian,” hummed Garak soothingly, “Julian, you are home. You are home now.”

The cries became audible, became louder, became a wail that make Kelas’ ridges ache and Julian yanked himself abruptly out of Garak’s grip, kneeling with the toy splayed in his hands. “You weren’t there!” he shouted. “You were always there, but you left—I left—I was alone, ‘Laka, I was alone and they took everything, they took _everything_ and I knew it this time, I _watched it happen_ this time but there was no you to hold onto, there was nothing, there was _nothing_ and I can’t—I couldn’t…” He bent over the bear again, a ball of misery rocking slightly.

Garak put a hand tentatively on Julian’s back, his fingertips avoiding all the gouges Kelas knew they both had memorized.

“Was I really so terrible?” The voice that came from the ball of Julian was strangled and strange and Kelas was almost unsure how he could make such a sound. “Was I really so terrible that you didn’t want me anymore?”

It was Kelas who buckled this time, glad of Shannon’s arm to steady him. How thoroughly they had played on every one of Julian’s fears of inadequacy, of otherness; how expertly they had taken the shadows in his mind and told him it was always night, had always been so. Kelas wept, then, for the magnitude of sorrow that these people who professed themselves to be caretakers had carved into his beloved husband.

Garak’s face was a terrible thing and Kelas was glad he was the only one who could see it. Pain and grief had flitted across it, but what had stayed was a fury so cold it could swallow a sun and seek another hungrily. Kelas had only ever seen that kind of anger in Garak once before, in the first months after the fire when a faction wishing to resurrect the old government had been caught trying to trade with the Breen and further endanger what was left of the Cardassian people.

It had not ended well for the faction.

Distantly, Kelas wondered at the realization that Garak loved Julian as he loved Cardassia—and how much that meant about what Garak was willing to do for him.

“You were never so terrible,” Garak said softly, almost inaudibly. “You could never be so terrible that we would send you away, that we would not want you. We chose you, _ss’lei_ ; we chose you to be ours. _I_ chose you, over and over and over again, from the moment I met you in the Replimat. I wanted you then and I want you still. Julian, _habibi_ , you are home, and you are welcome home.”

Still grasping Kukalaka, Julian leaned toward Garak, who caught him as he fell into Garak’s lap and held him gently, one hand rubbing slow, smooth lines into Julian’s shoulder, and Kelas stood and quietly led Shannon away.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I promised some kindness and I delivered! Julian gets a hug (sorta)! There is much, much more rockiness ahead, but see, there is also hope.
> 
> "Habibi" is the Arabic term for a man meaning, roughly, "sweetheart" or "beloved." I feel like Garak would have picked up a bit of Arabic when courting Julian just to keep Julian off-kilter and impressed.
> 
> I think I lifted the rock garden from _A Stitch in Time_ , which you don't need to read to get this but is just a lovely book. Regardless, I didn't come up with the memorial but stole it from another writer.


	9. Chapter 9

“It must be hard, watching him like that,” Shannon said after a long pause as she followed Kelas around the grounds, her hand gently hooked into his arm.

Kelas looked at her. “It is,” he said. “I imagine your enjoined would also feel this way.”

She turned her head away from him, her fingers tensing momentarily at his elbow. “Miagu will have moved on,” she said. “A joined Trill has plenty of options.”

“Yet he chose you.”

“He was misguided.”

Kelas pondered carefully, glad he had pushed Garak into working with him on his Standard, wishing they had had more time. He waited while they completed another circuit before asking, “How did you meet?”

A smile darted across her face. “He came to one of my performances. Tir, his symbiont, had come to love dance when one of the previous hosts was a dancer, so Miagu would often seek out dance shows to learn about what was new. He said that humans were so willing to contort ourselves that it was no wonder we’d invented things like ballet.” Her face closed, the smile utterly gone as her jaw tightened. “But it was wrong; it was wrong of me to let him get so close, to _marry_ him.”

“Why was it wrong?”

“He is not _human_. Humans are meant to be with other humans, it’s what’s healthy—it’s what’s best for us.”

Kelas allowed himself to roll his eyes, a gesture he’d picked up from Julian, since she could not see him. “Shannon, why is it healthy for humans to be with other humans?”

She stopped, pulling her hand away from his arm. “You wouldn’t understand. You’re not human. You’re—you’re _alien_.”

“Yes, to you, I am an alien,” Kelas answered, turning to face her. “And to me, you are alien. Yet here we are, having a lovely conversation about a man who thought you were a fine dancer. Is that unhealthy?”

“Please take me back to the house,” she said, her whole body radiating her nervousness.

Kelas sighed. “May I take your hand to lead you?’

She reached out tentatively and he navigated the yard with care.

***

Back in the living room, Julian and Garak sat side-by-side on the floor, Julian leaning against a bookshelf with Kukalaka still in his arms, Garak leaning against the nearby wall. Kelas observed the short distance between them and noted that their knees were almost touching, a small thing that was not at all small.

“I had planned to begin dinner soon,” Kelas said as he rested Shannon’s hand on the back of a chair. “Is anyone hungry?” He tried not to look too directly at the humans, both still alarmingly thin.

“We’d be delighted to eat with you, Kelas,” said Garak.

“It’s a good thing you’re the one cooking,” said Julian, and Kelas and Garak both looked intently at him.

"Why, Julian?” asked Shannon from her perch on the chair.

“Garak and I aren’t great cooks,” Julian answered. “I’m always too impatient, and Garak gets too carried away. Parmak is the sensible one.”

Kelas swallowed thickly and saw that Garak was fighting to stay calm. “I’m glad you think so,” Kelas said. “It can be quite the chore to get you both to eat.”

Julian looked down at the bear in his lap, gently rubbing its ears. “It was worth it when it made you so—happy,” he said.

“Well,” said Kelas. “Then I shall go prepare something that I will happily eat with you. Elim, would you help me in the kitchen?”

Garak eyed Julian for a moment before rising to join Kelas in the adjacent room. “He is living yet,” Kelas murmured to him as they pulled pans and ingredients out of the cabinets—this was not a replicator night.

“For moments,” Garak conceded, and the dinner made Kelas as happy as promised as both Julian and Shannon ate their fill in nervous snatches that looked like glimmers of trust.

***

“I can tell you wanted one of us to be on the couch,” said Julian, “but we’d prefer—if, I mean, if it’s okay, we’d prefer to be together.” Shannon nodded beside him, her fingers laced loosely in his.

Garak stifled a sigh. “We didn’t ‘want’ anything, Julian. We had prepared for you two to sleep in separate places, is all. If,” he swallowed, “if you’d prefer to be together, that’s fine. The bed in the office is big enough for two.”

The quartet stood awkwardly in the living room, the shadows of Cardassia’s heavy twilight sliding down the front window.

“Thank you, Dr. Parmak, and Garak,” said Shannon. “Thank you for letting us—for letting me stay with you. I know it’s odd to have a strange alien in your home.”

“But not unwelcome,” responded Kelas. He swallowed the sentiment that it was only fair they give her somewhere to stay, having blown up the place she’d been for a year.

“We’ll set up, then,” said Julian, “and, erm. And see you in the morning.” He ducked his head, unwilling to meet the eyes of either of his husbands.

“Julian,” said Kelas softly. “We understand.”

The human lifted his head. “Do you?” he said, his voice twisted in angry misery. “Because I don’t think Garak does.”

Garak, who had started walking toward their bedroom, turned back at the mention of his name. A storm of things passed over his face before it settled into his neutral mask. He tilted his head and left.

“Julian,” said Shannon, tugging on his hand.

“ _We_ do,” said Kelas. “But understanding doesn’t replace that this is—difficult. We respect your space, and you have it as long as you need, but it…it is overwhelmingly good to have you home.”

“ _Home_ ,” Julian whispered to himself, letting go of Shannon and wrapping long arms around his own torso. Kelas ached to be the one to hug him like that, to hold him tightly as Garak had so briefly done with the stuffed bear clasped between them.

“Home,” Kelas repeated instead. “A place where you are always welcome, and where you are missed when you are not here. A place—a place where you are loved, just as you are.”

Julian shuddered and Shannon reached out, trailing a hand down his bicep, reading his body’s tension. “Come on, Julian,” Shannon murmured. “It’s been a long day. We need sleep.”

Julian laughed softly. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said. “I’ll be sure to follow your advice.” He turned to lead her to the office that doubled as a guest room but hesitated. “P—Kelas?” he said.

“Hmm?”

Julian reached out one hand, palm up, shaking slightly. Kelas raised his eyeridges until Julian nodded. Placing his grey hand against the slim, tan one, Kelas resisted curling his fingers into those long tapers and Julian inhaled sharply. A beat passed, two, three, and Julian pulled away, closing his eyes and breathing in, out.

“Good night, Julian,” said Kelas, and did not wait for a response before fleeing to the bedroom where Garak waited.

"He is in the same building and yet on a different planet," Garak said as Kelas leaned against their closed door, cradling his hand.

“It has been two octals,” said Kelas, trying to regulate his own breathing, his own heartbeat. “I told you it would take time.”

“Kelas?”

Kelas blinked and looked up, finding Garak standing very near him with a concerned look on his face. “Kelas, are you all right?”

Kelas stared at him a moment before laughing, a low chuckle in his core that bubbled up into his ribs and lungs and throat and burst out of him as a strangled and gasping thing. He slid down the door and landed with an ungainly _thump_ as Garak tried to catch him, still laughing breathlessly as Garak cradled his head in his hands. “Kelas? Kelas!”

“I’m,” Kelas began, still wheezing, “I’m physically fine, Elim, I’m fine.”

Garak searched his eyes before turning and sliding into position next to him. “A fine pair we are,” he said, reaching for Kelas’ hand as he settled against the doorjamb.

“A fine quartet,” Kelas returned. “Elim?” He turned his head, leaning it on the door, and waited for Garak to look at him. “What else did he say to you, today?”

Garak let his head fall forward, examining their hands as he rubbed a thumb over Kelas’ mottled scales. “Not much else,” he said. “He apologized, to both of us, for—for not being strong enough. He said that he’d fought, at the beginning, but he stopped fighting, and he couldn’t remember why but he was sorry, he was so sorry for being…for being too much. And not enough.” He squeezed Kelas’ hand, stopping just short of being painful. “He said he would have understood if we’d forgotten him.”

Kelas traded out his hands in Garak’s to reach over Garak’s shoulders and pull him close, two grown Cardassians cuddling into each other against a door, against the black holes of the universe that had nothing to do with science and everything to do with evil. “What did you say to him?” he murmured into Garak’s hair.

Garak breathed deeply, the exhale catching on slight shudders. “I told him that he was one of the strongest people I’d ever met, and that I couldn’t forget him if I tried.” 

“Why does he think you don’t understand him needing space?”

Garak pushed himself up, away from Kelas’ embrace, and hunched forward over his bent legs. “He thinks I’m still angry with him about—about what he said at the hospital.”

“Are you?’

Garak swiveled to look back at Kelas, marveling at the dappled grey-and-white scales perfectly framed by the wild white hair. “Are you not?”

Kelas smiled, briefly. “No, Elim, I am not. But we have always known that my capacity for forgiving harshly-said things runs differently than yours.”

Garak tensed and looked away.

Kelas leaned forward. “I’m sorry, Elim, that’s—I didn’t mean that as an insult. You have always been…passionate, and I think it frightened you more than you realize to hear something so painful from his own mouth.”

“We are all three passionate, in our ways,” Garak replied.

"Mmm,” Kelas agreed. He scooted forward to be slightly ahead of Garak and turned toward him, tilting their heads toward each other. “Show me?”

“Kelas,” chided Garak, surprised. “How can you possibly—I mean, tonight, of all nights—”

“Is when I want us to remember that we do not cease to exist without him,” interrupted Kelas, “and that we are incomplete with only each other. I only need you to kiss me, _ss’lei_.”

Garak pursed his lips. “And here I thought you were issuing an invitation.”

“Do you want me to?” 

“No, Kelas.”

“What do you want?”

Garak’s eyes narrowed. “You maneuvered me into that.”

Kelas smiled. “If you will not name your needs outright, then I will help you find other words,” he said.

“And here I was worrying about _you_.”

“Worry all you like, Elim, but it is night, and I believe in the night.”

Garak smiled faintly and leaned forward, brushing his lips against Kelas’. “So I shall believe in the day,” he whispered, and deepened the kiss to press the words into reality between them, licking into the taste of the language, of Kelas, of the absence of the one who lay awake down the hall listening to the Cardassian wind stroking the roof like a lover searching for another’s touch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of domestic fluff for you in your post-Thanksgiving recoveries (at least, that's my excuse for the Americans; for everyone else, domestic loveliness for no particular reason whatsoever). I'm glad that Shannon is starting to come into her own as a character and we'll get a lot more out of how deep her scars go in the next couple of chapters.
> 
> I appreciate so very much that y'all are sticking with how slowly I'm unwinding this; I know that long-term stories can get frustrating, so your continued reading is awesome.


	10. Chapter 10

The faint beeping sound roused Julian to the place just before full wakefulness. He wondered at the warmth in his arms, the weight of it, and the sound “Ezri” skipped through his mind. He smiled; it was a good sound, a sound he liked, and he didn’t know why it felt strange to hear it, to say it, as though it had been unused for a long time.

_Wrong_ , shouted a shattering voice in silence, _she is wrong, they are wrong, you are human among humans, stay with your own kind, it’s for your own good_.

Julian jolted awake, his chest heaving as he pushed away from the woman in his arms— _Shannon_ , he thought, Shannon who was not Ezri, Ezri who was not Garak or Kelas, Cardassia that was not—

The beeping was coming from the comm unit in the corner of this office-turned-guest-room. They had never bothered to separate the two, he remembered; they had so few guests. His parents had been quite displeased.

His parents…

“Hello?” Julian said, answering the comm with a look over his shoulder at the still-sleeping Shannon. He turned the volume low, realizing belatedly that he hadn’t checked to see who was calling, how foolish that was. Garak audibly rolled his eyes in Julian’s mind.

“Julian?!” came Ezri’s voice, and Julian wondered for a second if he had conjured her from the memory of waking next to her. “Julian, is that really you?”

“Ezri,” he said fondly, trailing a finger down the viewscreen, automatically counting her spots as he always did. “It is good to see you.”

“Oh, Julian, likewise. I was—I was so worried about you, and Garak hasn’t really told me much about how you’re doing; you look thin, Julian.”

Julian’s mouth quirked in a half-hearted smile. “I’ve always been thin, Ez.”

She frowned at him and he missed her terribly in that moment even as a voice like mercury slithered through him, _not human, not human_.

“You’re thinner than is good for you,” Ezri said. “But I’m glad you’re—I’m glad you’re home.” The word tumbled between them, strangely weighted and multi-faceted.

“How are you, Ezri?”

“I’m good, Julian,” she said with a soft smile. “I got that promotion you encouraged me to go for, to first officer serving on a starship just like I used to talk about.”

“Congratulations,” Julian said earnestly. “How’s your space sickness doing with that?”

She grimaced. “I have good days and bad days. The hypospray formula you made for me works like a charm, though, when I need it. Some days I think that’s the best gift you ever gave me.”

Julian looked down at his hands. “I didn’t give you much,” he murmured.

“Hey,” said Ezri. “Julian, look at me.” He did, after a moment, meeting her clear blue eyes. “You gave me so much. And I’m grateful for it, and for you, and I’m glad we’re still connected.”

_Not human not human_ chanted the mercury voice, and Julian gripped the edges of the comm unit.

“Julian?” asked Ezri in concern. “Are you okay?”

“Fine,” Julian eked out. “Just—just a touch of headache.”

“You never were a very good liar about your health, Julian. What’s wrong?”

“I…” Julian shook his head, took deep breaths, tried not to hear his own screams as they locked him away where his heart beat too loudly. “How much has Garak told you?”

“Not much,” said Ezri, “but he asked me to track down a Trill. Do you know him, this Miagu Tir?”

“No. That’s Shannon’s husband?”

“Yes. Speaking of which, I wanted to talk to Garak about that. Is he around?”

“He’s—in the other room. I can go wake him.”

“Let it wait a minute. It—it really is good to see you, Julian.” Ezri’s warmth poured through the screen and Julian found his affection for her overwhelming the warning pounding through his head; he didn’t want to sleep with her, only be her friend. She was a good friend _even for a Trill_ whom he admired _filthy aliens_ and missed, sometimes.

“It’s good to see you, too, Ez,” he said, and made himself mean it. “I’m glad you went for the posting. Where are you these days?”

“Out gallivanting through space,” she said with a laugh. “It’s strange to have a different constellation out my viewport every night; I’d gotten used to the stars above Bajor without even realizing it.”

“It sneaks up on you like that,” Julian said wistfully, thinking of DS9 and the colorful burst of the wormhole. “It wasn’t a bad place to be stationed.”

“No,” said Ezri. “Jadzia and I both learned so much there.”

The familiar pang went through Julian’s heart at the mention of Jadzia and he was surprised that it still hurt so much. They hadn’t taken his grief, then, and why would they? No reason to fear a dead woman.

“Julian?” came a voice from behind him, and Julian held up a finger to Ezri before turning.

“Good morning, Shannon,” he said. “A very dear—friend of mine has called. Would you like to come say hello?” His voice caught on the descriptor and the whole world of things Ezri was to him; as he turned back to the viewscreen, he could see that she understood the pause, the effort of it.

Shannon carefully edged off the bed and Julian found himself strangely glad both of them were in baggy but fully-covering clothes. There was nothing between them, but having a woman climb out of the bed they’d shared to say hello to his ex-girlfriend in his husbands’ house was surreal.

“Hello, Shannon,” said Ezri once Shannon had made her way to the console, guided the last few steps by Julian as he turned up the volume. “My name is Ezri Dax. Julian and I served together on Deep Space Nine.”

Shannon faltered. “Dax? The Trill Dax?”

Ezri looked confused. “Yes.”

“No, you can’t— _no_ , you mustn’t be, you can’t be, you can’t—” she backed away, her legs hitting the edge of the bed. She fell backward, flinging out a hand for balance, her eyes wide and searching for the face she couldn’t see. “You can’t be _Trill_ , the Trill are wrong, they’re _wrong_ and I was wrong—I said I wouldn’t go back, I promised, I _promised_ , I didn’t mean to, I didn’t _know_ —”

“Shannon,” said Julian, crossing over to her, “Shannon, listen to me—”

“I _trusted_ you!” she yelled at Julian, flinching from his touch. “How _could_ you, _how could you_ , you said I would be _safe_ here, you’re _just like them_ ; it’s fine, it’s fine, I’ve gotten better, I understand, it’s a temptation and I am strong, don’t worry don’t treat me I see I was wrong, I will not disobey you, I have learned, I am no longer ill.” Her voice was increasing as she curled into herself and Ezri was saying something from the comm unit and Julian understood, understood exactly what was happening in Shannon’s mind as the mercury voice chuckled darkly.

“I’ll call you back, Ezri, I’m sorry!” he yelled as he cut the call and turned back to Shannon. She was in complete panic, her protestations having devolved into moans of apology and begging. Julian reached for her, laying his hand on her shoulder and she shrieked.

“What is going on?” said Kelas as he and Garak burst through the door. “Julian, are you all right?”

“It’s Shannon,” Julian said. “Ezri called and Shannon knew she was a Trill and Trills are her Cardassians and she’s bargaining—she’s bargaining with Michael, with the crew, she’s lost on the ship, I know where she is but she thinks I brought Ezri here, I don’t know how to help, _I don’t know what to do_.”

“Kelas, take Julian,” Garak said from just outside the door. Kelas stepped in and beckoned Julian toward him, careful to avoid contact, and Garak went to the bed. “Shannon,” he said, his voice low and gentle, “Shannon, it’s Garak. I’m going to sit next to you.” He pushed on the corner of the bed and she scooted away, curling further into herself. He sat, perched on the very edge. “Shannon, you are on Cardassia Prime. Do you remember being in the hospital, talking with me? Do you remember keeping Julian company?”

“I will not disobey,” she said in a broken voice.

“That’s good, Shannon, I appreciate your obedience. Do you remember the hospital?”

“I remember the rooms.”

“The treatment rooms?”

She tensed even further, nodding. “I don’t need them, I swear I don’t need them.”

“I believe you, Shannon. I know you’ve been good. I know you’ve done what was asked of you.”

“I am better; I see that I was wrong.”

Garak breathed in slowly, exhaling as he leaned forward slightly, careful not to let his weight change pressure on the bed enough for her to feel it. “Shannon, do you remember my voice? Do you remember the hospital?”

The silence weighed kilotons as they waited, Kelas and Julian knowing better than to break into the scene in front of them. Finally, Shannon nodded in the smallest movement.

“Good, Shannon, very good. I’m glad your memory is as sharp as ever. You were telling me that you had only ever heard of Cardassians but not met one, do you remember that?”

She nodded again.

“You were surprised by our ridges, that they were raised.”

Nod.

“Do you remember what you called them?”

“Mountain ranges,” she said quietly.

"That’s right, Shannon.”

"Is the Trill gone?”

“She is. I’m sorry that you were startled by that.”

“I can’t be with them. Garak, you know I can’t be with him ever again.”

“He’s not here, Shannon, so you haven’t done anything wrong. It’s okay; you’re safe here. It’s just Julian and us two Cardassians.”

She leaned forward slightly. “Garak?”

“Yes, Shannon?”

“Are you sure I’m safe here?”

Kelas marveled at the steady, measured breaths of his husband, his strange and paranoid husband who wanted so badly to make the people he cared for safe and who had been so unsafe to so many. 

“I’m quite sure, Shannon. I’m here with you, does that help?”

She put out a hand and he covered it lightly with his, the slate and dark brown entwining. “Will you stay with me, for a little while?”

“For a little while,” Garak responded, and she tentatively scooted closer to him, curling into his embrace, and if Kelas saw the heart-rending pain on Garak’s face as he rested his cheek on her head, it was not the worst thing.

That Julian also saw it might have been.

Garak lightly stroked Shannon’s back and the four of them stood in the odd tableau before Julian slid behind Kelas and left, quiet as a shadow. Kelas asked Garak wordlessly and Garak nodded— _I will stay here. You go with him_ —and Kelas left as well, his mind full of the man who rocked a woman crying in his arms as she received all the love he could not give to the one he wanted most.

***

“Julian!” Kelas called as the front door banged shut behind him. “Julian, where are you?” He scanned the front yard, the monuments still covered in the light silt of the night as they waited for the day’s wind. “Julian?” He stopped, closing his eyes and listening, trying not to be impatient with his poor Cardassian hearing.

There—of course there. Kelas headed toward the monuments, toward the hitching breaths of the half-living among the long-dead. “Julian?” he asked again as he found the human kneeling next to one of the rock piles.

“Go away, Kelas.”

“I’m afraid I won’t be doing that, Julian,” Kelas replied, easing himself to the ground beside Julian, careful to keep space between them.

“Shannon needs you.”

“Shannon has Garak.” Kelas didn’t miss the grimace that twisted Julian’s face before he schooled his features again, looking down at his hands twisted in his lap.

“I didn’t—I didn’t even think about it, about what that would do to her. I was just so…so glad to see Ezri, even if…well, even if she’s an alien, too.”

“Does she frighten you, also?”

Julian huffed. “It’s not fear, Kelas, it’s—God, how do I even begin to explain to you…”

Kelas settled in further, leaning against the monument and soaking in the morning sun’s warmth. “It’s disgust, perhaps. A feeling that your own skin doesn’t fit anymore, that everything you thought you knew about yourself is wrong, is so horribly wrong that you can’t possibly continue to think it because that would mean _you_ are wrong but of course you are, of course the very core of you is a mistake, a disease that you would cure if only you had the right sequence, the right words, the right mindset. It’s a sickness of everything you thought you wanted to be because how could any person in his right mind _want_ to be like that, to think like that, to want like that.”

He could feel Julian turn toward him and opened his eyes to meet Julian’s slack-jawed stare. “How did you know?” Julian whispered.

Kelas sighed. “I can never fully understand what you went through, Julian, nor the various ways that the Organization taught you these things, but I spent years in a labor camp built to break me of the notion that there was anything more worthy of my devotion than the State, that any ideas I had about a different way of living were not only incorrect but morally wrong.” He rubbed the lightened splotches on his knuckles, feeling the ache of the long-healed bones. “I know what it’s like to have someone break you apart to remake you in their image.”

Julian digested this for a moment. “I—I know Garak thinks I hate him, and that I hate you, but it—it isn’t that. I don’t hate you,” he said to his lap.

“You hate yourself,” Kelas supplied softly.

Julian nodded, swallowing down the tears. “I hate that I want to change, but I hate that I can’t change, that I’m still…oh, Kelas, the things that I hear in my mind when I look at you, or Garak, or Ezri. I can’t even tell you how—how cruel that voice is, how hard it is not to believe it, how…” His jaw clenched. “How disgusted I am by _you_ , sometimes, because I’m trying so hard not to be disgusted by myself.”

Kelas leaned forward, waiting until Julian met his eyes. “Yet you stay here.”

Julian snorted. “It’s been all of a day, and it’s not exactly like I have anywhere else to go.”

“Do you want to leave?”

Pain, hope, sorrow, and anger tumbled across Julian’s expressive face. “I want to stop being,” he whispered.

Kelas’ heart squeezed in his chest. It was not unexpected, such a desire, but it hurt to see its truth etched into Julian’s too-thin frame. “What keeps you here?” he asked, holding his voice neutral.

Julian shrugged. “I thought it was Shannon, but clearly I’m useless there, too.”

“It wasn’t your fault that Ezri called.”

“But it was that I talked to her, that I introduced Shannon to her, that I didn’t even think about Shannon’s husband being Trill.”

“How did you know he was?”

“She told me in—in about the second month. I…” Julian paused to take a bracing breath and Kelas realized he was holding his own and reminded himself to exhale, inhale, exhale. “I still talked about you, about Garak, about how Garak would—would come for me. She was on so much at that point but they were starting to wean her off, starting to move her to the third level; that’s when you’re cured, you’re ready to go back to the world because you know, you understand that what you were was wrong, was…perverted. We had to tell the group what we’d been ‘freed’ from, what we now knew was our sickness. She said her husband had been Trill but never said his name.”

Kelas noted that Julian was rubbing a specific spot on his shoulder. “What did you say?”

Julian’s fingers curled tightly. “I said I had nothing to be freed from.”

“And how did they react?”

A sneer that wasn’t even close to a smile twisted Julian’s face. “They took me to the treatment room. They...they pinned me to the chair and asked me again, again and again and the…the shocks just got higher and higher and I…I pulled my shoulder out and they kept asking until…” His voice hitched and he bowed, his arms curling around himself. “I said I was free from the Cardies, from the scalies who had twisted me, from the sick desire for spoonheads.” He started to rock gently on his knees. “And the slurs tasted _so good_ , Kelas, and I could _hear_ Miles’ approval and my parents’ relief and it felt so right to be _free,_ to realize that aliens are useful but that at the end of the day you go home to your own people, that anything else is twisted.”

Kelas brushed away his own tears, wishing with everything in him that he could take Julian into his arms and rock with him, to hold the human tightly against the memory of pain so deep that it carved out his heart but told him to keep living.

“I’m so sorry, Kelas,” said Julian, his voice a pitiful thing, “I’m so sorry that I came back and you have to hear this, to deal with—”

“No, Julian,” said Kelas, sitting up straight, clenching his hands. “We _came to get_ you; you didn’t wander back unwanted, you aren’t a burden. Yes, hearing what happened to you hurts, but both Elim and I are here _for you_ , _with_ you. Hear me right now, Julian Subatoi Bashir: whatever they told you on that ship, whatever you said to protect yourself, we love you. We are three together. We pledged that to each other, all three of us, and that is not reversible for Elim and I. If you want to—leave—then you are free to do so, but it will never be because we don’t want you here.”

There was a pause between them for a moment. “Your Standard has gotten really good, Kelas,” said Julian at last, and Kelas smiled.

“I’ve been practicing,” he said.

“Because I can’t speak Kardasi.”

“Because you _and Shannon_ can’t speak it,” Kelas corrected. “It is not a burden.”

Julian rolled his shoulders in wordless disagreement and Kelas let it go. “So Garak is hoping to have Ezri get in touch with Shannon’s husband to give her the speech you just gave me?”

“Something like that,” said Kelas.

“It’s not going to go well.”

“Because of how she reacted to Ezri?”

“That, and because of how I react to you. She was in the—program longer than I was, Kelas. The longer you go, the fiercer the focus on the aliens you--well, with whom you were, or wanted to be...intimate. If I can’t even let you touch me, can’t speak the language I’d lived into for at least a year, how do you think she’s going to react?”

Refraining from the deep sigh that was building in his chest, Kelas shifted back against the monument. “Yet you’re sitting out here talking with me and neither of us has died from it.”

“No, just hurt each other in a thousand ways.”

“Julian,” said Kelas, curling his fingers into his palm, “these things take time.”

“You still have nightmares from the camps, Kelas. I remember waking with you, holding you until you came back to us. How much time do you think it will be for me if my nightmare _is_ you?”

More than anything else Julian had said, this frank question asked with such bottomless grief in the hazel eyes struck Kelas to the quick and he didn’t even bother to respond before Julian stood, dusting off his knees.

“I’m going to go check on Shannon,” he said. “I can at least apologize. Maybe I’ll get good at it if I do it enough.”

He walked back toward the house and Kelas finally let himself lean forward and weep.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In case you can't tell, I think Parmak is a fierce warrior of a Cardassian who is every bit as strong and marvelous as Garak and Julian.
> 
> Getting to write soft!Garak is also one of my favorite things (he shows up in pretty much all of my works, actually), so I'm glad Shannon is letting him be that. I'm writing her ability to attach to him even though he's alien being based on 1) she doesn't want to sleep with him, 2) she can't see what makes him alien and therefore he gets to be a little less obvious in her mind (tactility notwithstanding), and 3) he's been nothing but kind and grounding to her since they met. If you were curious.


	11. Chapter 11

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter is heckin' long, but I'm hoping you don't mind. It has a lot of Garak love in it, if that helps, and feeeeeelings.

Garak and Shannon were seated at the kitchen table when Julian reentered, a pot of tea steaming gently between them. Garak’s hand rested just next to Shannon’s, the edge of it brushing against her skin. For a split second, Julian ached to feel Garak’s hand on his own, feel his fingers dancing down his arm and splaying over his bare chest, the coolness of the Cardassian scales against his own fiery heat—

A full body shudder shook him and he leaned against the door frame for support, panting slightly as his mind warred with itself. He breathed deeply, willing himself not to be sick.

“Julian,” he heard Garak say, a flat statement, likely to let Shannon know he was in the room.

“Julian?” Shannon echoed.

“Here,” said Julian in a strangled voice, pushing down the fear, the nausea, the despair roiling under the skin that could not be touched. He looked up and saw Garak watching him, those crystal blue eyes cataloguing, assessing, seeing far too much. “I’m here, Shannon.”

She turned in her chair toward his voice. “I’m so sorry, Julian.”

He shook his head and walked toward her. “I’m the one who should be sorry, Shannon—I didn’t even think—”

“You shouldn’t have had to. She’s your friend, this Ezri. You should be able to talk to your friends.”

Julian heard Kelas come in behind him and watched Garak’s eyes flick over his shoulder, a silent conversation he could not understand. _See how well they work without you?_ came the voice of mercury, and Julian jerked his head distractedly.

“You should call her back,” Shannon was saying. “And please—please tell her I’m sorry.”

"I will,” Julian said. “I know she’ll understand.”

Shannon reached out and Julian held her hand for a moment. “Will you be okay out here?” Julian asked. He almost winced as the question left his mouth, hearing his own unspoken _with Garak?_ in the tone. 

“I’m okay,” Shannon reassured him. “Garak made me tea.”

“Which kind?”

“He says it’s called redleaf.” She lifted her cup. “Would you like some?”

The scent of it drifted to Julian and a thousand memories cascaded through him _as he leaned forward to deliver his latest jab across the Replimat table, hoping for that twinkle in Garak’s eye when he was good and riled; as Garak kissed him the third time, still so new that Julian counted each one, his lips tasting of tea; as they sat in the small shack on Julian’s first day on Prime and tried to name what they were to each other with hands warming around their mugs; as Garak made breakfast and Kelas poured his own cup, his eyes smiling at Julian over the rim; as his parents set their cups down in obvious distaste, looking over the house and the husbands with equal disgust; as he kissed Kelas good-bye and gulped the last bit from the mug he would not get to put away—_

“Julian, what’s wrong?”

Julian gasped, letting go of Shannon’s hand as he realized he was gripping far too tightly. “I’m—I’m sorry, Shannon, it’s nothing.”

“It’s not,” she said.

“No,” he agreed, “but I’m here now.” He looked up, straight into Garak’s eyes—Garak, who had not moved, who sat still as stone with the blank face that Julian knew hid a thousand emotions, a million secrets. Julian ducked his head, unwilling to stand in front of that unscalable wall. “I should go call Ezri.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Kelas. “I have some questions of my own for her.”

Julian shrugged and returned to the guest room. The pair did not speak as Julian input the information, waiting for the connection, and Julian felt strangely ashamed of the unmade bed next to them, so suggestive yet innocent.

“Julian?” came Ezri’s voice, her face filling the screen with concern. “Julian, are you okay?”

The background habit of counting her spots took almost no focus as he replied. “I’m okay, Ez. That—that was Shannon. As you can see, Trills aren’t great for her.”

“Oh, Julian. Garak told me that things were going to be hard, but I didn’t realize…is that how you are with—” She cut herself off as she looked to Kelas, standing just within frame.

“Yeah,” said Julian softly. “Mostly, yeah.”

The pity in her eyes would have infuriated him if he weren’t so tired, so sick of pitying himself, so obviously unworthy of anything but pity from others. _Even aliens_.

“Dr. Parmak,” Ezri said, turning her eyes away from Julian, “I know Garak wants to get Miagu and Shannon back together, but I can’t help but think that’s a terrible idea if she reacts that violently to even the idea of a Trill.”

“I understand,” said Kelas, “but I agree with Garak that keeping them apart isn’t healthy, either.”

“Ezri,” said Julian, “if I may?”

“Absolutely.”

“It’s—I know I’m a different…case, but do you remember when you worked with Garak on his claustrophobia and it turned out that it wasn’t about the claustrophobia at all?”

“How do you know about that?”

“He told me, later. Sort of. I also figured some of it out at the time.”

“Well, he’s free to talk about it however he wants. That’s good; he needs to open up to people.”

Kelas huffed quietly beside Julian at the idea of Garak being “open” to anyone, even them.

“Anyway, it’s a little like that. When Shannon reacts—when _both_ Shannon and I react to our…spouses, it’s about more than the spouses. To at least have them in the same conversation helps offset the…treatments.” Julian shuddered slightly and Kelas tensed. “The people aren’t the same as what they were trying to burn out of us, you see? It’s helpful to remember that the people who—who loved us aren’t as cruel as we were told.”

Kelas felt his heart leap at the confirmation that Julian knew he was loved, knew Kelas and Garak loved him, knew that there was a connection there. It was a small step, but Kelas would take it with both feet. _I will believe in the day_ —he needed to tell Garak.

“Well, what I originally called to say is that I’ve found a Miagu Tir,” Ezri said hesitantly, “but I haven’t told him about Shannon yet. He’s been looking for her; apparently her sister told him she was dead and he refused to believe that because there’s a lot of bad blood in the family.”

“How did you find out about all this?” asked Julian.

“Dax’s connections go deep, Julian,” said Ezri. “And people are always willing to help reunite people, especially if love is involved. People want to be helpful, for the most part. Makes them feel heroic.”

“Run into a lot of that in your counseling?”

Ezri arched an eyebrow at that. “Or in my boyfriends.”

Julian huffed. “Fair enough,” he said. “I kind of deserved that.”

“Julian, it’s not about deserving,” said Ezri. “But it is about reminding you that there’s a broken family at stake here.”

“Trust me,” Julian said grimly, “none of us need to be reminded.”

There was a moment of silence until Kelas stepped in again. “I will discuss this with E—Garak, but I have the feeling he will say we should continue with our efforts to reunite them.”

“Doesn’t Shannon get a say in this?” asked Julian suddenly.

Kelas looked steadily at him. “In this? No.”

“How can you say that? You’re a doctor; you know the importance of informed consent.”

“I also know she is not in a position to give it.”

“She’s of sound mind.”

“Is she?” Kelas tilted his head. “Is she capable of recognizing the way more than six months’ worth of physical and mental torture alter her ability to categorize the relationships that were important to her prior to it? Is she able to name and work through her responses?”

“Shouldn’t the trauma responses be all the more reason for asking her about this?”

“I don’t think anyone’s saying we should just spring this on her, Julian,” interjected Ezri. “But there’s a big difference between preparing someone for something that’s going to happen and asking if they’re even ready for it in the first place.”

“Absolutely!” said Julian, and suddenly he knew that he had to defend Shannon to the last, that it was paramount to make sure she had a voice for once, that one of them _chose_ what happened to them. “It _matters_ that you ask her first, that you don’t try and force them together—Kelas, please. Talk to Garak; tell him—”

“Tell him yourself.” The tone was gentle, but firm. “I will not ferry this message for you, Julian, even though I see your argument and agree with it. You must talk to him.”

Julian glanced down at the screen. “Can we let you know what to do next later, Ez?”

She shrugged. “I’m in no hurry. We’re scheduled to be charting this trinary system for at least a week. But Julian—I think you’re right about giving Shannon as much choice as we can, but be very careful about what you’re doing for _Shannon_ and when it stops being about her.”

“I know,” Julian said.

Ezri eyed him for a moment. “I hope you do,” she said softly, and Julian closed the comm.

***

Garak watched the pair exit the bedroom warily, noting the space that Kelas kept so carefully, the tension in Julian’s lean frame. He took a sip of his tea, his outward demeanor perfectly unruffled, flat and smooth as the Bajoran sea.

“We were able to talk with Ezri,” Kelas announced as Julian hesitated by Shannon’s chair.

“She wasn’t too angry with me, was she?” asked Shannon, turning toward his voice.

“No,” said Kelas gently, “she wasn’t angry at all. She understands that you’ve been through quite a lot, Shannon. It must have been a shock to wake up to her on the comm.”

Shannon turned back to the table and curled her hands around her mug, her breathing short.

“Shannon, you didn’t do anything wrong,” said Garak, brushing his fingers against the back of her hand. “There is no punishment for reacting as you’ve been taught.”

A tear slid down her cheek as she reached out and gripped Garak’s hand tightly.

Julian turned away and Kelas stepped in front of him. 

“Now’s not the time,” Julian said.

“Will there be one? He goes back to the ministry tomorrow, Julian. This will not get easier.”

Julian looked at Kelas in surprise. He’d forgotten about things like work schedules, about Garak’s rise as a councilor in the newly-rebuilt government, about the position of power Garak held—and had apparently set aside entirely for him. “How long has he been out of the office?” Julian asked.

“As long as was needed,” Kelas said. 

Julian grimaced and turned away. “Cardassia needed him more—”

“Gentlemen,” said Garak, coming up behind Julian, “if you’re going to argue, I suggest you take it elsewhere. Our guest does not need extra strain at the moment.”

“Julian was just needing to talk with you, Elim,” said Kelas, ignoring the stormy look Julian gave him. “I’ll sit with Shannon and you two can chat.” He went to the table and took up Garak’s place.

“I doubt either of the bedrooms is where you would like to be at the moment,” said Garak blandly, and for all that Julian wanted to hit him he appreciated being seen so deeply. He did not want to be in a bedroom, not with Garak, not right now, so he led the way back outside, almost wishing Garak would not follow.

“You can’t bring Tir here,” said Julian as he heard the door shut behind Garak. He turned back and saw Garak standing with his arms held lightly at his sides, that maddening air of geniality that held so much coiled power still radiating from him.

“I see the good commander has told you of our plans.”

“You can’t do it, Garak.”

“Has she located him?”

Julian glared for a moment. “Yes. She hasn’t spoken to him yet, though; he was told Shannon was dead.”

“Did he believe it?”

“No.”

“How fortunate.”

“Garak—”

“Doctor, have you any particular reason for telling me I cannot reunite a separated couple or are you simply going to keep repeating your objection?”

“Did you miss this morning?”

“That’s not a reason.”

Julian huffed. “More than enough reason, I’d say.”

“So we should have left you at the hospital?”

The morning air was warm with the sun mostly risen, but the space between them chilled. “What?” said Julian, hating that Garak could always manage to knock him onto his back foot.

“You had an even more violent reaction to Kelas and I when you were first…reintroduced. In fact, you doubted the very reality of us. So should we have left you at the hospital to spare you further distress?”

“I—I would still have been around Cardassians, for one thing. This isn’t the same.”

“Ah, and all Cardassians have equal effect on you.” Garak’s face was no longer bland but sharp, biting, cold.

“Why are you mad at me, Garak?” said Julian, his voice barely restrained. “Do you think I _asked_ for this, for the way I react to you now?”

The mask slipped for a moment and bottomless grief hurried across Garak’s expression before he schooled himself. “You foolish boy,” he said softly. 

“Me? _I’m_ foolish? _You’re_ the one who’s treating me like I’ve done you a personal injury. And I’m no boy—I haven’t been for a long, long time.” He pulled at his shirt in the rising heat and Garak watched his hand, tracked his eyes up the scratch marks still faintly visible against Julian’s brown skin. He took a step forward and Julian automatically stepped back. Garak stood still and opened his hands in appeasement.

“Do you wish we had left you on the ship?” Garak asked.

Julian stared. “How could you ask such a thing?” 

“I don’t know, Julian. I don’t know if we did the right thing, to come and get you ourselves rather than have someone else find you. I don’t know if we haven’t done more damage by bringing you back to a planet full of the people you hate.”

“I don’t hate you.”

“Don’t you? Don’t you hear your own disgust at us, we Cardies you were tortured into fearing?”

“Shut up!” Julian shouted, his fists clenched at his sides. “Shut the _fuck_ up! Do you have any idea what it was like, Garak, to be told over and over and over that I was _broken_ , that I was _sick_ , that everything would be fine if I’d just let them _cure me_ of the one thing in my entire fucking life I’ve felt sure of? I dreamed of Adigeon Prime, of being strapped to the bed and remade because at least that time it was all at once, it was a continuous nightmare that I didn’t understand because I was too _stupid_ to see that I wasn’t right, that I wasn’t what my parents wanted, that I wasn’t what anyone wanted. But this—oh, Garak, this was so much more _fun_ , this being fully aware of every single thing they were doing, of every day that passed when they shocked me, beat me, locked me in a room with nothing but my own heartbeat, when they burned my desire for you out of me and I _could not make it stop_ until I agreed—I agreed that I wasn’t right, that I wasn’t what anyone wanted, that I wasn’t what _you_ wanted because surely you could never want sick _trash_ like me when you have Kelas and Kelas has you and I am just wrong again, made _wrong_ but this time there’s no augmentation that could fix me to make me right, to make me anything that should keep living. I didn’t want to keep living, but I couldn’t die.” Julian took a deep breath, looking away into the quiet monuments. “I tried; I tried twice and they put me in the meditation room until I just couldn’t fight anymore, so I couldn’t fight and I couldn’t die and every single day was hell because the only thing I deserve is hell, really, since I can’t ever measure up to what other people seem to want, and now you don’t want this husk that’s left and I get it, but I tried. God, Elim, I tried to be good enough for you, I swear to God I did.” He dashed away the tears tracking down his cheeks and finally looked at Garak.

Garak was crying. Garak was _weeping_ , a thing Julian had never seen even in the darkest of days after the Dominion’s cruelty. Tears cascaded down Garak’s ridges as he stepped forward, his hands still open at his sides, until he was within an arm’s length of Julian. “By the gods, Julian Bashir,” Garak said, “you have never been trash, you have never deserved anything but the absolute best, and you have always been good enough.”

“What?” Julian felt like his skin was buzzing with the release of his own words and the confusing response of Garak’s.

“I am not mad at you. I cannot be mad at you because none of this, _none of this_ is your fault. I am—I am at such a loss as to what to do for you because everything that I am frightens you now. Julian, you are the one thing—the one _person_ I’ve wanted in my life since I met you nearly ten years ago. You have always been enough, and I have always wanted more of you. I chased you at every lunch because I wanted to hear what you had to say, I wanted to understand that incredible mind of yours, I wanted to watch the animation of your beautiful face and hear your marvelous laugh. Every time you were lost on a mission I felt my heart seize; every time you came back I wished I could go up to you and simply hold you close, keeping you from anything in the universe that would hurt you. I'm not mad at _you_ , I'm infuriated at the horrifically named ‘healing center’ that took out the part of you that could love me back because I fought _so damn hard_ for it—for you; and for them to have erased me as well as hurt you is unforgiveable. But I don’t know how I can keep you without hurting you further.”

“I’m—I’m not wrong?”

“Julian,” said Garak, reaching a hand up and curling his fingers back on themselves. “You are beautifully, perfectly, gloriously _right_ , exactly as you are, with the part of you that’s Jules and the part of you that’s a xenophile and the part of you that’s a doctor and the part of you that has shockingly terrible taste in clothing and the part of you that still insists Shakespeare is decent literature and the part of you that values all living things and the part of you that actually believes in the Federation hope for all races and the whole of you that is someone I fell so deeply in love with that I married you, willingly, knowingly, purposefully. I love you, Julian Subatoi Bashir, and that’s why I don’t know how to let you go even when keeping you is clearly hurting you more than Dax hurt Shannon.”

“Let me go?” The world shifted under Julian. “No, Elim—please, don’t, don’t let me go.”

“But I am what they used to hurt you.”

“ _So teach me something different_ ,” said Julian fiercely, grabbing Garak’s face between his palms and holding on when the man started in surprise. “ _Burn_ them out of me until it’s only you because it’s always been you, hasn’t it, driving me up one wall and down another with your lies and your literature and the fact that you never once gave up on me. You were always there when it mattered—I saw how you managed to be somewhere on the Promenade or by the turbolift when I came back from a mission, how you always made a point at lunch of saying that it was a good thing I was back. You listened to every story, every fear, every hope I ever had and you mocked me completely for it but you never once abandoned me or told me I was less. And then you wrote me your life story and God, Elim, if that wasn’t a move I never saw coming!” He thumbed the ridges under Garak’s eyes and Garak hooked his hands over Julian’s shoulders, holding on tightly. “ _nu_ ,” Julian swallowed as Garak’s eyes widened. “ _nu ka zIra’I, ss’lei_ , and I hate that it makes me sick to feel the words on my tongue but I will not let them take you from me, not when we fought with each other for so long to get here. Yes, they used you to hurt me, but I have been hurt before and it hasn’t killed me yet. If you’re—if you’re willing to be patient with me, then I’m willing to try because damn it, Garak, I didn’t read _The Neverending Sacrifice_ so I could live it.” He looked into Garak’s stunned eyes. “Can you wait for me, Elim?” he asked as he pressed their foreheads together.

“Until Kelas’ gods come back for us,” Garak promised, and the pair stood quietly for a moment.

“We didn’t exactly reach a decision on Shannon,” Julian said after a while, not breaking the connection.

“Why do you not want me to bring him here?”

“I just think we should give her the choice.”

“Then let us talk it over with her.”

“Tomorrow.”

Garak sighed and began to pull back. “I go back to work tomorrow, Julian.”

“I know. Kelas told me. But maybe—maybe I can have a conversation with her? She trusts you, so if she hates the idea I want it to look like it came from me.”

“Protecting me, my Julian?”

“As much as I can, Elim.”

Garak’s eyes clouded. “Julian—”

“Don’t, Garak,” Julian interrupted. “We can talk about however much guilt you feel later. Right now, I'm having a hard time controlling the voice in my head that doesn’t like you at all and isn’t really keen on me either and that’s taking the last of my energy.”

Garak nodded and let go of Julian’s shoulders. “Then let us return inside and see if the rest of the day might be less calamitous, hmm?”

Julian smiled half-heartedly. “One can always hope.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some notes--this references the season seven episode "Afterimage" and the Kardasi (courtesy of tinsnip) is "I love you." The "life story" thing is a nod to "A Stitch in Time," which you don't need to have read but you should, absolutely, read.
> 
> Garashir makes my heart beat, really, so three cheers for the way they hold each other together.


	12. Chapter 12

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> First, a celebration: [Nearly 400 religious leaders](https://uk.news.yahoo.com/hundreds-religious-leaders-declare-lgbt-082124717.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly90aW1lLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAALHZiCHo1Idyt3iRLpwaunkZSeRUEeEhCreZMLMH85Sz9e3m7-gBCzsXx66t9o0AD-Od_AeFOVWocKuZ5ee0GWoy5_UAPG6YcyBziIqSlhQHgY1Qqb3WwNRXMjUvIrrr1HFsD8VNOY6KT93zUnfRwGBYtij7_2VdoB9yr1vro_ZF) signed onto an apology and declaration of solidarity with LGBT folks this past week, calling for [a ban on conversion therapy in the UK](https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-55326461?fbclid=IwAR0H2t5-dI-Hn6yW8j7NM0AK66mjGN5MoxXEARBxxjKM2eBazsVJHjF0Tk8). It is a good moment that is not small in terms of the glacial shifts in religious thought.

Kelas smiled to see the pair return, their bodies far more relaxed even if the distance remained. “Our friends have returned, Shannon,” he said, “so we must stop talking about them.”

Shannon chuckled. “Don’t listen to him trying to get me in trouble,” she called over her shoulder. 

“I wouldn’t dare,” said Garak, “as I happen to know Kelas spends his time with some rather untrustworthy characters.” He smiled gently at Kelas, tilting his head in acknowledgement. 

The day passed carefully as Garak led Shannon through the memorial stacks and Julian asked Kelas about the doings of the hospital he had missed. Several times, Kelas stumbled over Standard vocabulary and hesitantly tried to describe what he needed until Julian stopped him. “If you give me the Kardasi you’re thinking of?”

Kelas eyed him. “It has been a trying day already.”

“Kelas, if I’m going to stay here then I need to speak Kardasi, and if I need to speak Kardasi then I need to remember what it sounds like—what it sounds like in your voice and not theirs.”

Biting back the observation of “if” Julian planned to stay, Kelas offered his Kardasi and Julian, after a moment, provided the Standard. They continued along their linguistic bridge, contenting themselves in the clinical distance of their shared profession. Kelas thought, not for the first time, of how alike his husbands were; each buried himself in his employed identity, comforted by a title that did not leave room for unfortunate realities like pain, trauma, uncertainty.

“I do believe I will never be able to see these stones the same way again,” Garak said as he and Shannon rejoined Kelas and Julian. “Our guest has a knack for reteaching me my own front yard.”

Shannon shrugged with a smile. “It’s nice to feel things that aren’t human-made, for a change,” she said. 

“Yes,” said Julian curiously. “I wondered what I appreciated about simply walking around today, and it’s—well, being planet-side is always such a different experience. Even if it is still bloody hot here.” He tugged at his shirt, grumbling that at least it was nearing Cardassia’s winter and therefore the humans wouldn’t die of heat exhaustion.

Both Kelas and Garak let him run on his usual disagreement with the inhuman weather without comment, noting instead the scratches Julian’s tugging made visible, both remembering the cuts and burns that decorated Julian’s body. Julian caught them staring and flushed, drawing the wrong conclusion.

“I think it’s time we go inside,” he said, self-consciously wrapping his arms around himself. Garak and Kelas exchanged looks and Garak led Shannon away, leaving Julian and Kelas together once more.

Julian stood shyly apart, holding his body stiff in a marked change from their stroll of just a few minutes ago.

“I am sorry,” began Kelas.

“No, it’s…it’s not your fault, I know you still—well, I _think_ you still—but I can’t, Kelas, I wish—”

“Julian,” interrupted Kelas, “please.” The pair halted and Kelas turned to Julian, who studied the ground intently. “Yes, we both ‘still’—our attraction has not changed. But we were not staring for that.”

Julian raised his head, his eyes questioning.

"Your scars,” Kelas said bluntly. “Why won’t you let me heal them?”

The lanky arms tightened further around Julian’s torso. “Don’t, Kelas.”

“I won’t touch you without your permission, Julian, but I want to understand. Why do you keep them?”

Julian sighed deeply, looking away to the sun meandering across the sky. He mumbled something and Kelas leaned forward. “What?” Kelas asked.

“I need to keep them,” Julian said more loudly.

“But why?”

“I deserve them.” 

Kelas rubbed a hand over his own jaw, willing himself to calmness. “Why do you think you deserve them, Julian?”

“I stopped fighting.”

“Oh, my love,” sighed Kelas, wishing he could hold the human close. “You wish to heal Shannon, do you not?”

“That’s different.”

“Because she was there longer?”

“Because she hasn’t been imprisoned before. I have. I have _training_ on how to hold out, and I knew what they were doing and how it would affect me.”

Kelas knew of Julian’s time in the Dominion internment camp but had never gotten the full picture of it; he wished Garak were here with his shared experience to shine a bright light on the difference. “No one is unaffected by long-term torture, even if they know exactly what’s going on.”

“You survived.”

Kelas laughed bitterly. “As a broken and changed man, yes, I did.”

Julian looked at him at last, quizzically.

“You were not here in the first months after the Fire, dear one, and I know Elim wrote a glowing account of my heroism where his own brokenness was concerned, did he not?” He waited for Julian’s nod. “I appreciate his view of me as rescuer, but he did not tell you about my own need of rescue, of comfort. He did not tell you of the time it took me to be able to be in the same room with him and not shake in fear, and I imagine he has not told you that I married him and still cannot look him in the eye some days.”

“Still?” said Julian in surprise.

“Still,” Kelas confirmed. “It is not often, and our time together helps, but sometimes I look at him and see only the interrogation room, feel only the fists of the overseers, taste the metallic air of the camp. I survived, yes, but I also stopped fighting _so that_ I could do so, and my body has its own kind of scars.” He gestured at the vitiligo on his hands and down his neck ridges. “There were others, but I did not keep them. I often wish I could rid myself of these.”

"Were you not born with them?” Julian could not think of a Kelas Parmak without his startlingly white hair, his grey-and-white splotches like an Appaloosa horse.

“Not this many,” said Kelas, rubbing at his knuckles. “You know, Doctor, that what begins as a controllable disease is made worse by physical distress.”

“But they’re beautiful,” Julian said.

“So I am learning, thanks to the pair of you and your delight in this new pattern. But the other scars were not, and I did not keep them to remind myself of my own failures. Such things are easily remembered on their own.”

Julian considered this. “I—I am so lost, Kelas, about where I even am sometimes. It will take me a while not to need these as…as an anchor, of some sort.”

“Do they pain you?”

Julian shrugged, hiding the way his poorly-mended shoulder made him wince. “No more than the fuzziness I still feel while the drugs cycle out.”

Kelas nodded. “Then we shall wait. If you need them, then you need them—but if you are keeping them out of some sense of punishment, do not. Do no harm, Doctor, even to yourself.” 

Julian looked away. “We should be going in,” he said.

“Lead the way,” Kelas responded, and the pair returned to the house.

*** 

The night felt very similar to the one before as the quartet gathered in the living room after supper to pair off again. “Will we get to say goodbye before you leave in the morning?” Shannon asked as they stood awkwardly.

Garak tilted his head. “If you so choose, but I leave at an early hour. Would you like me to wake you?”

Shannon nodded. “I’ve spent my mornings with you for a while, now; it would be a shame to break our pattern.”

“Ah; I, too, am fond of patterns.” Garak looked at Julian and then away again. “How about I set an alarm for you?” 

“I don’t want to wake you, too, Julian,” Shannon said.

Julian laid his hand lightly on her shoulder. “I don’t mind,” he said. He had reasoned out Garak’s offer of a clock—him waking to a Cardassian face would not go well, he knew, though he hated admitting what felt like another defeat.

“Then I shall set that straight away,” Garak said. “Would you like to come with me, Shannon, so I can show you how to turn it off?”

She nodded and they went to the room together, Garak deftly leading her without crowding.

“It’s amazing, how they’ve bonded,” Julian mused aloud.

“Elim has always had an underbelly for the resilient,” Kelas answered.

“Underbelly?” Julian queried, turning to him. “Oh! ‘Soft spot.’”

“Are they not the same?”

Julian smiled. “Functionally, yes, but they have different connotations—contextual meanings,” he clarified.

“Such a layered language Standard is,” said Kelas. “Elim insists that the Federation is open and simple, yet your own language has rules upon meanings upon ‘connotations.’”

“I suppose we do,” said Julian, “but it’s nowhere near as difficult as Kardasi.”

“Ah, but there is the difference,” said Kelas, his eyes twinkling at the promise of a linguistic argument. “Kardasi has many layers of rules and grammatical building blocks, but Standard has assumptions and cultural referents and—not metaphors, but sayings that don’t mean what they say.”

“Idioms?”

“Idioms,” repeated Kelas, rolling the word around. “Rather close to ‘idiot,’ really.”

“Anyway,” said Julian, pursing his lips at Kelas, “it’s kind of a reflection of the cultures—Cardassians are hellbent on order and Federation races are more about experiencing others.”

“Or,” said Kelas, “Cardassians want to give structure and the Federation wants to see if you know enough to belong.”

Julian’s half-smile disappeared and he curled slightly in on himself. “Guess none of us passed that test,” he said to the ground.

Kelas held in a sigh of self-reproach at having trod too near the “soft spot” of Julian’s fear. “You belong here, Julian,” he said.

“Do I? Kelas, I flinch when you look at me, sometimes; I poured my heart out to Garak this morning but still can’t bear the thought of waking up to his face. How can I belong here when I’m so clearly causing you both such pain?”

“Do you think the pain would be less if you left?”

Julian jerked his head in an uncertain nod.

Kelas tightened his jaw. “Julian, do you remember—do you remember just before your meeting with Medek, when I asked you about walking home with me?”

Julian’s eyes went bright with fear, then flattened. “Why?”

“Do you remember?”

Julian ducked his head, his breathing quickening. “I—sort of; Kelas, they—”

“Don’t go past it, Julian,” pleaded Kelas, balling his hands into fists to stop himself from reaching out, holding steady. “Stay in just that moment of memory, of answering me.”

“I kissed you,” Julian said, his eyes closed.

Kelas smiled sadly. “You did rather more than kiss me, my dear. I was afraid the nurses were going to call us out for indecent displays.” Julian shuddered slightly and Kelas felt it like a suckerpunch but kept going. “Do you remember what you said to me?”

“’Think of it as a promise,’” Julian whispered.

“A promise,” Kelas answered.

“But I can’t deliver on that promise!” Julian exploded, frustrated. “They _took that_ , Kelas, don’t you see?”

“The promise wasn’t sex, Julian,” said Kelas, steel in his voice. “You have never had to promise either one of us your body. You were promising us _you_.”

“And if I have to break that promise?”

“Then you are free to do so, but you aren’t the only one who made that promise. You do not have to choose tonight, or tomorrow night, or next week, but know that we will wait for you, hurting with you, _healing_ with you, _no matter how long it takes._ ”

Julian looked Kelas square in the eye, his irises dilating against the hazel rings. “But what if it’s never? What if I can never deliver on that promise? What if you will always have to wait for me?”

“Then we will love you as a human who brings light to our house simply by existing in it, teaching us your language and your idioms and your self,” said Kelas. “They took a great deal, and I never want you to feel like I am downplaying that. But they did not take _you_ , Julian. And you will always, always have us.”

Garak returned just then and Julian slipped past him, his body coiled tightly. “Kelas?” Garak asked.

Kelas crossed to him and enfolded him in a fierce embrace. “If the only thing I can do is tell him how much I love him, is it enough?”

Garak wrapped his arms around his husband and leaned his cheek against the shock-white hair. “It has to be,” he said. “But I would advise we show him now and again, as well.”

Kelas’ body shook slightly in his arms and Garak wasn’t sure if it was from laughter or tears before reflecting that the line between them was rather thin, anyway.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This directly references the Fic That Started It All, "Dawn," which you should definitely have at least skimmed before getting this far into mine, goodness. It also references season five, "Purgatory's Shadow" and "By Inferno's Light."
> 
> The nod to Kelas' vitiligo is based on the fact that it is a genetic disorder but can be amplified by stress, poor nutrition, and physical injury, all of which Kelas experienced. 
> 
> I am very aware that Kardasi has its own idioms and referents and twisty metaphors, but given that Standard is mainly based on English and English is three owls in a trenchcoat pretending to be a language, I totally believe Cardassians would be hard-pressed to see how learning Kardasi is harder than learning Standard. English is a very tricky language if you don't get it early because everything has at least two exceptions, including the exceptions.
> 
> (And yes, the chapter count did go up, you're not imagining it. It may go up yet further, as I'm still writing this and Shannon and Miagu are being Very Irksome at the moment.)


	13. Chapter 13

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It is Christmas Day here in the United States, so merry Christmas and have a bonus chapter for the week--a long one, too. I hope that, wherever you find yourself in this season of holidays across the faiths, you have your own Garak who reminds you that you are valued, your own Parmak who tells you you are wanted, your own Shannon who insists that you keep fighting, and your own Julian who fiercely calls you to hope. I am grateful for you in this journey, Reader, and hope you have a Christmas (or Friday, if you don't celebrate) of light and warmth.

The alarm clock’s steady thrumming disoriented Julian as he fought to understand the sound, the feeling of his body wound so tightly it hurt, the bed shifting as another weight left it. _I am not ready, Michael, I did not mean to forget, do not take me_ rumbled the litany in his mind and he shook with it, shook with his fear and his pain and his surety that he could not stop himself from coming apart at the seams under the pressure that made even the weariness of the internment camp feel manageable.

His body rocketed blindly out of the bed, out the door, his muscles following a path his mind didn’t register as he made it to the bathroom to throw up, his sides heaving with the effort.

“Julian?” he heard calling—Shannon’s voice, Shannon in Garak’s house, no, _his_ house, his house on Cardassia Prime, in a universe where Michael was dead and the Healing Center that broke him was a thousand shards of metal drifting in silence.

“He’s this way, my dear,” Julian heard; Garak, who no doubt had been up for some time.

“Julian?” The voice was much closer now. “Julian, are you all right? I heard you leave the bed and dash out of the room, what happened?”

Julian coughed, hating the taste and the feel and the soreness, hating the way his medical mind unhelpfully reminded him that detox would take another two weeks at least— _no, not weeks, octals_ —and that his continued stress was doing his body no favors. “I’m fine, Shannon,” he said.

“Well, that’s a lie,” she clipped. “I can hear and smell that you’ve been sick, so just because I can’t see how awful you look doesn’t mean you have to pretend I don’t know.”

Julian chuffed against the cool toilet. “Then why did you ask?”

“Habit,” she said. “Don’t they teach you social niceties on Cardassia?”

Julian dry-heaved in response.

“I’m sorry,” said Shannon as she knelt beside him. “I asked because I wanted to know if this was something I should ask Dr. Parmak about.”

Shaking his head, Julian shifted to put space between them. “No, Shannon, you don’t need to get Kelas. It’s just another lovely side effect of detoxification.”

“Then can Garak help you get cleaned up and back to bed? I can’t, and I think you’ll need a hand.”

Julian sighed. “I don’t think either of us wants to deal with me in this state, but thank you for thinking of it.” He stood, tapping her on the shoulder as he passed, and put his face under the faucet, rinsing out his mouth. He’d forgotten how strange the water tasted here on Cardassia, the precious resource that had such an unusual tang to it that warmed his throat comfortingly every time.

“I think you should ask him before you decide what he wants,” Shannon said from behind him. “Garak?” she called. “Could you come in here?”

“Shannon—” Julian started as he turned from the faucet too quickly, stumbling—

Into Garak’s arms as he caught him, set him upright, and let go as soon as he was sure Julian could stand. “Yes, Shannon?” Garak said, his face the kind of bland that hid whole planets’ worth of secrets.

“Julian is not well. He’s also an idiot. Can you help him get back to his room? I’m afraid I’m not much good as a guide; I did a poor enough job getting myself around in a hurry.” 

Blinking, Julian realized there was a gash down her arm where she had presumably caught her shoulder on a doorframe. “Shannon!” he said. “You should have said—hang on, let me get a medkit.”

“I’m fine, Julian,” Shannon said. “It’s not even bleeding. Well, not much.”

“And you call me an idiot?” Julian muttered as he wiped off his face and took a step forward.

He stumbled again, his head still heavy and his stomach roiling in protest, and Garak reached out to steady him. “She did indeed,” Garak said, “but I think the title is well shared in this household.”

“What on Prime is going on?” said Kelas, stepping into the main room in a cinched robe.

“Julian is ill, Shannon is bleeding, and I’m about to be late to work,” said Garak. “Would you mind lending a hand?”

Kelas sighed long-sufferingly and disappeared into the bedroom for a moment, reappearing with a medkit. “Can you take Julian to bed, Elim? Shannon, let me patch that up for you.” He gently began the quick work of healing the scrape while Garak looked at Julian, a silent request for permission in his eyes. Julian shrugged his yes and leaned a little into Garak’s shoulder, the two of them making their way back to the study.

“Is there anything I can get for you?” Garak asked as he helped Julian settle back onto the bed. He went to step back, but Julian held his hand fast, pulling him down beside so that they sat next to each other.

“It’s just detox, Garak. This is going to happen until my system fully resets.”

“Ah,” said Garak, looking down at their interlocked hands, at the symbol of it that Julian knew as well as he.

“I’m sorry we’re making you late,” said Julian.

“I’m not late yet,” Garak replied.

“Still habitually and freakishly ahead of schedule?” Julian said, chuckling weakly.

Garak looked at him, those blue eyes questioning. “It is a good habit I’ve never gotten around to breaking,” he said, his voice lighter than his expression.

“It’s okay, Garak,” Julian said, clearing his raw throat and looking away from that searching gaze, letting go of Garak’s hand self-consciously. “I’m not going to jump you.”

Garak snorted. “I would hope you have greater consideration for my old bones than that.”

Julian smiled his lopsided half-smile and Garak felt his heart constrict. “I told Shannon you wouldn’t want to see me like this, but I guess you’ve seen me in pretty much every compromised state over the years, so being sick isn’t anything new.”

“You are the doctor, Doctor,” replied Garak, tentatively reaching for and tapping Julian’s hand between them, “but I remind you that I have a rather strong stomach of my own. And besides,” he continued, hesitating.

“Besides?” Julian opened his palm, slipped it around Garak’s again, squeezed.

“You are beautiful no matter what state you’re in.”

Julian stared and Garak shifted uncomfortably. “Elim Garak,” said Julian, grinning, “you old romantic. Only the truly besotted would find someone beautiful right after they threw up.”

“Does it surprise you still?” said Garak softly, turning to face Julian.

Julian ducked his head. “I feel like I keep having this conversation with you. And besides, you’re supposed to be saying good-bye to Shannon.”

“I won’t very well climb out the back window to avoid her.”

“What a relief.”

“Julian?”

“I don’t—I don’t doubt that you find me attractive, Garak; you’ve proven _that_ well enough over the years.” He smirked at Garak but let it slide when Garak did not rise to the gibe. “I doubt that…well, I doubt that you’re serious about wanting me to stay here.”

“Where else would I want you to go?”

“Wherever,” Julian said. “You may be an old romantic, but it’s going to wear thin to watch me being sick, to have to navigate the fact that some days I can hold your hand and some days I can’t bear to even think about touching you, to realize that I may never…that I might not be able…” He trailed off, looking away.

“An open mind—the essence of intellect,” Garak said, his voice gentle. “As you may know, I own a memorial garden nearby, so if you should require a companion in the fresh air or merely wish, as I do, for a bit of enjoyable company now and then, I’m at your disposal, Doctor.” He waited, watching Julian’s confusion gradually give way to comprehension.

“You were trying to pick me up even then,” Julian said, half-accusing.

“Of course,” said Garak, “even though I knew full well that you might never, that you might not be able. I admit I did not begin with the purest of intentions, but the friend I made was worth the challenge.”

“But now you had more than a friend and will know what you’re missing.”

“What I’m missing? Will you no longer have tea and literature discussions with me, Doctor?”

“You know I mean more than that.”

“And I know that I spent seven years being perfectly content to be your friend, and I will spend another seven and more being so if that is what you need. I know—” Garak’s voice caught slightly, “I know they told you that we don’t need you, that we don’t love you, that I would be better without you. But on this, Julian Bashir, understand that I am telling the fullest truth I know: they were dead wrong. _I_ need you, I love you, and I have never been better without you. Even on the days you are ill, and the days you cannot bear to touch me, because you are still in the world and my world is richer for it.”

A tear tracked down Julian’s cheek and he brushed it away impatiently. “You have such faith. I—I wish I could set aside all this doubt like that.”

_I will doubt in the night,_ heard Garak faintly. “I believe in the day,” he quoted, savoring the quiet inclusion of Kelas even though he was in the other room.

“You really are an old romantic, Elim,” he said.

“Yet another of my abominable faults,” Garak said, raising Julian’s hand to his lips and brushing a light kiss across its back, letting go at Julian’s sharp intake of breath. “But being late is not on that list, so I regretfully must go.”

“Yes,” said Julian, “Cardassia needs you.”

Garak studied him with his piercingly clear eyes. “If you need me, Julian, Cardassia can wait.”

Julian’s mouth dropped open and Garak tapped it closed before standing. “My dear Shannon, all patched up?” he said as he crossed into the other room, leaving Julian in the stunned realization that the lifelong drive of Elim Garak had shifted to make way for this one exhausted human whose hand still tingled from the softest kiss.

***

After Garak had left and Kelas, Shannon, and Julian had made their way through a somewhat subdued breakfast, Kelas rubbed his hands together.

“All right, my dear Shannon, you have had the chance to explore the memorial out front. It is time for you to see the garden out back.”

Julian winced and Shannon smiled sadly. “That’s very kind of you, Dr. Parmak, but seeing isn’t exactly my forte.”

Kelas looked puzzled. “Of course not,” he said, then looked contrite. “Ah, language. I take it the Standard ‘see’ is only visual?”

“Not always,” said Julian. “What were you trying to say?”

Kelas pursed his lips, weighing the situation, before uttering his intended Kardasi phrase.

“Oh,” said Julian, his fingers tightening slightly around his mug, “that’s more ‘experience.’”

“Experience, then,” said Kelas. “I do apologize, Shannon, for any harm.”

“Not at all, good doctor,” she replied. “Between my blindness, your vocabulary, and Julian’s overall discomfort, I think ‘experience’ is a pretty good way to talk about anything we’ll do.”

Kelas’ mouth quirked. “Then shall we?” He helped her take his arm as he led her out the back door, Julian slowly following.

It was even more marvelous than Julian remembered. He silently thanked Kelas—for without a doubt it had been he—for forcing Garak to keep up the many twisting pathways and overflowing beds in Julian’s absence. Long after the color bursts of the spring and summer, the dusky blues and browns and greys of Cardassia’s autumn reminded Julian of the gardener himself and Julian smiled as he watched Kelas lead Shannon through Garak’s sprawling wonder, inviting her to touch and smell its riches.

Julian had to admit, it felt so very good to be back here in this garden he had watched grow from hardscrabble dirt and dust, to be with Kelas and—and Elim, Elim who had never given up hope.

But even as he thought it, felt the word “home” embrace him, Julian shivered from the searing pain of the metal plates, the rippling agony of electric shocks; he heard the steady, terrifying thump of his own heart. Gasping, Julian fell to his knees, steadying himself by winding his fingers through the faded vines of a _k’sselessa_ shrub. How could he ask Shannon, who had been through so much more, had suffered such deeper wounds, to confront the reality of her husband when his own had such a visceral effect on him? Surely this was doing harm, breaking the one oath he held sacrosanct?

Breathing deeply, Julian remembered the morning with Garak, the duranium reassurance that if Julian needed him, he would make even Cardassia wait. Julian never wanted to test that order of priorities, but for Garak to say it at all was shockingly strong evidence against the idea that there was something intrinsically wrong with their relationship—could love that fierce, that deep, that important really be corrupt?

“Julian?” He heard Kelas’ concerned voice coming toward him. “Julian, are you all right?”

“Fine,” he eked out, the tone and his own body posture making it an obvious lie. Kelas knelt beside him, reaching out and hesitating, and Julian hated him for pulling back, hated himself for being relieved, hated the Healing Center that had damaged him.

“May I?” Kelas asked softly.

Julian thrust out an arm and Kelas wrapped his fingers around the bony wrist, counting the pulse that Julian could have told him was too fast. Julian tried not to think about the scales on his skin, the way his mind told him both _yes this is good_ and _no they will hurt you_ simultaneously. He focused inward, pulling his enhancements around him like a cloak as he focused on his heart and told it to slow, slow, slow.

He wondered, briefly, if he should tell it to stop.

“You found your favorite shrub,” Kelas was saying as he let Julian’s wrist go, as he sat back on his heels to give Julian the distance that Kelas did not want. “It has done rather well this year.”

“Makes one of us,” Julian muttered without thinking as he left the meditation room in his mind.

Kelas’ mouth quirked at the corner. “The vine and the root are together,” he said, referencing the symbiotic nature of the plant that was used as a relational metaphor in Cardassian culture. Julian thought about asking what would happen if one were diseased, if the sickness would pass through and kill both halves of the plant, but Kelas was not the gardener and Garak did not want to hear that the doctor was incurably ill.

“I’m glad you had Garak keep up the garden,” Julian said instead, and was rewarded with Kelas’ smile that said he had been right about who told whom to keep going. _They are good together_ , slithered the mercury in his mind.

“We wanted to have it for you to come home to,” said Kelas. “It was always one of your favorite places to be, when it was cool enough.”

Julian pushed himself to his feet, brushing off the silted dirt of Cardassia. “It’s a great achievement,” he said. “I’m sorry for scaring you.”

“You’ve not done a lot of walking around in nature of late,” Kelas answered. “It will take a moment to get your legs back.”

The burns on his thighs whose shiny scar tissue pulled when he walked snickered at Julian, the burns higher up aching just because they could. His legs would take more than a moment to come back.

“Julian, are you all right?” Shannon’s voice drifted from behind Kelas. “Dr. Parmak told me to stay put, but I’m not a very good listener,” she said, assuaging Julian’s sudden fear that Kelas had simply abandoned her among the snaking pathways she could not see. 

“I’m fine, Shannon,” he said, tasting the lie again, finding the bitterness familiar. “How about we walk together a minute?”

Kelas stood and stepped back. “I promised Elim I would see his orchids,” he said. “Make sure you and Julian go to the greenhouse, Shannon; there are some plants there that you need to—experience.”

“I will,” said Shannon, holding out a hand until Julian grasped it and looped it into his arm. The pair wandered off and Julian resolutely did not look back to see whether Kelas looked as tired as he felt at this charade of normalcy.

“Julian, _are_ you all right?” Shannon repeated after a moment.

Julian snorted. “Of course not, Shannon. Are you?”

She tightened her hand on his arm. “I’m trying to be.”

They walked in silence for a moment before she resumed, “They’re very nice, your husbands. They’re trying.”

“I know,” said Julian, sounding as tired as he felt. “And yes, they’re nice. They’re also both expecting the return of a man who is dead now.”

“Is he?”

“Completely.”

“Julian,” Shannon said, stopping them in the middle of the path, “don’t let them win like that.”

Julian rolled his eyes, not caring that she couldn’t see the gesture. “They’ve already won, Shannon. They took your eyes, they took my heart; I have the scars upon scars to prove it.”

“No!” she said, yanking her arm away from his. “Don’t, Julian. We _survived_ , don’t you see? Everyone else— _everyone else_ is gone. Have you thought about what that means? Have you remembered Sarah, and Lupita, and Vivian, and Bohai, and Josu? Or Saheed, and James, and Dwandra, and Alejandro, and Isabelle?”

"You mean all the people that Garak killed?” Julian replied ruthlessly. “All the innocents who were as trapped by the Organization as we were but who had the misfortune to be unknown to my ‘very nice’ husband? Yes, we survived. Bully for us. There’s so much now that we can enjoy.”

“ _There has to be_ ,” she said fiercely. “There has to be.”

"Like your husband?”

Shannon stepped back, the space between them suddenly whirling with Julian’s anger. He had not meant for the conversation to go like this, had not meant to be on the attack, had not meant—Julian sighed. “I’m sorry, Shannon. That was over the line.”

“Do you have any idea how much I want to see him?”

“What?”

Shannon wrapped her arms around herself, holding tightly despite the mild heat of the Cardassian sun. “I was there longer, Julian, and I’m no doctor to understand what was going on. I learned, once they took my eyes, exactly how stupid it was to keep fighting them. So they won, because I gave up Miagu. I let them take him. But then your husbands—yes, even Garak who killed everyone else, Garak who could not _save_ everyone else because he is only one man, after all, and I have no idea how he wasn’t killed himself by the failsafes onboard that ship—your husbands came for you, and they also got me, and for the first time in a year my head doesn’t feel clouded and I woke up this morning without dreading being alive. And I hear them too, Julian; I hear them whispering in my mind about how wrong this is, how disgusting your husbands are, how you and I should just run away to the safety of humans, how I am so much better off without Miagu. But underneath that, in a pocket I didn’t even know I’d created, is my memory of the way Miagu looked when we first kissed, and the delight on his face when I said yes to his proposal, and our wedding where I meant every vow I said. And it is _utterly fucking exhausting_ to hold all of that in my head, but every time I hear the way Dr. Parmak speaks to you or feel the tension in Garak who is holding himself so tightly to keep from reaching out to you, I am _so jealous_ that you are so loved.” She paused for a moment, pulling on one of the spiky kinks of her pitch-black hair. “The training is there, Julian; I made it to the point of being ‘healed,’ and undoing that is an every-minute-of-the-day battle, but it’s one that I’m starting to want to fight again. I have no idea if Miagu still loves me, if he even still knows I’m alive, if _he’s_ even still alive, but I think about how the other ten will never get to undo what the Center did to them and how you and I have a chance, a real and new and true chance and it scares the hell out of me but I want to try to be more than they told me I should be. I have to try, don’t you see? I still love Miagu, Julian, and it hurts to say it and it hurts to think it but I can’t make it untrue. Do you still love them?” She gestured out, encompassing the wider gardens, his husbands, this world.

“I don’t know,” Julian whispered. “I can’t separate them, Shannon; I don’t know how much is me and how much is the Center, how much is the drugs that I can still feel—they make me sluggish, and I haven’t been sluggish since I was a child and I feel like the whole world is encased in fog and Kelas and Garak both keep telling me that it’s okay but it’s _not_ okay, it will never be okay.”

“Never?” Shannon said, blinking. “Never is a really long time, Julian. They told me I was never going back to Miagu and I’m now standing on Cardassia Prime at the house of an alien who I’m pretty sure could make Miagu appear tomorrow if I asked him to, so ‘never’ seems a lot more flexible than I’d thought.”

“Do you want him to?”

“What?”

Julian took a deep breath, holding Shannon’s hand in his own. “Garak could make Miagu appear—probably not tomorrow, but soon. Do you want him to?”

Shannon pulled her hand away. “Are you serious?”

“My friend, Ezri—she has connections. She found Miagu.”

Shannon stumbled backward and Julian reached out to catch her, sinking to the ground with her. “He’s—he’s still alive?”

“From what I’ve heard.”

“Does—does _he_ want…?”

Julian hesitated. “I don’t know. I haven’t talked to him, Shannon; I’m only relaying Ezri’s information that she found him.” He wasn’t sure why he kept the story of Shannon’s death to himself, but that felt like more information than was useful at the moment.

Shannon stared blankly at the ground, blinking away tears that were too fast for her and spilled over her cheeks. “I…I don’t know.”

“We can start with just a call,” Julian said. “And I can stay with you, if you want.”

She reached out and he took her hand, leaning his head forward to rest against hers. “Julian,” she whispered, “what if he’s moved on?”

He smiled. “Like my husbands have, you mean?”

She squeezed his hand. “You weren’t gone as long.”

“Shannon,” Julian said, rubbing his thumb over her knuckles, “if Miagu was even half as happy when you said yes to him as you remember, I don’t think he’d get over you in only a year. And if you’re worried about how he’ll react to you, well, remember that you’re safe here with—with us.” It felt strange to think of himself together again with his husbands, both comforting and terrifying at once. “Garak’s taken quite a shine to you, so you can have him if anything goes wrong with Miagu.”

Shannon laughed and pushed him gently. “He’s quite taken,” she said. “I don’t have to see him to know the way he looks at you.”

Julian’s stomach shifted in discomfort and he let the remark slide. “So,” he said, “should I have Ezri tell Miagu to call you?”

Shannon lifted her head, her face suddenly drawn in worry. “But he’ll see—he’ll see my eyes,” she said. “And I won’t see him.”

“Do you want to see him?”

“I…I don’t know.”

“How about we set up the call and deal with the next thing after that?”

After a moment of hesitation, Shannon nodded, her afro bouncing as her excitement grew. “Yes, Julian; they will not win. _They have not won_.”

Julian looked at her, at her clouded and scarred eyes, at the way her dark skin still looked slightly bleached, at the boniness of their hands together, and did not voice his doubt.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie, I so look forward to hearing what you think of the several bombshells here...
> 
> I have now written enough fanfiction that I can reference my own works in Easter eggs, which is both a marvelous achievement and an absolute absurdity. So the shrub mentioned comes from the tale [The Time of Year](https://archiveofourown.org/works/27369793), which is short and fluffy, if you're in the mood for such things. That story isn't in the same universe as this one, but the lore of the plant is explained.
> 
> (And yes, I reworked Garak's introduction from "Past Prologue" to fit his wooing of Julian here.)


	14. Chapter 14

“I’m ready to contact Miagu.”

Garak stood on the threshold, his hand still on the doorknob, eyeing the determined woman in front of him. “Is that a declaration of what’s happening now or have I time to come fully into the house?” he asked.

Shannon’s face tightened in embarrassment. “Of course,” she said, stepping aside. “I’m sorry, Garak, I—and you didn’t even—was it…was it a good day at work?”

Garak smiled faintly at the attempt at normalcy, almost laughing at the idea of anything about his life right now being “normal.” “It was a fine day,” he said, and closed his mind to the office and the exhaustion of trying to slot back into a bureaucracy they were building under their feet as they walked. The day had been made infinitely harder by his constant desire to comm home, to check in, to make sure Julian would still be there when he returned.

“Julian and Dr. Parmak are in the kitchen,” Shannon said, reading by some magic—or something not magical at all—into where Garak’s true attention turned. “They said you’d be home around this time.”

“And you’ve been waiting at the door to accost me?”

Shannon’s blank eyes shifted down. “I didn’t think—”

“It is quite all right,” Garak said soothingly, dredging patience from somewhere as he tamped down his desire to go to the kitchen _right now_ , to see Julian for himself, to know that he hadn’t been taken again. “I am glad you’ve come to a decision about Miagu. Now, let me hang up my coat and we’ll join the others to talk about how this shall go, hmm?”

Shannon nodded and Garak put his cloak away, feeling the office pull off of him, the weight of Cardassia’s government making way for another weight entirely. _“You look exhausted,” said Julian, kissing Garak tenderly as Kelas put away his cloak. “I was going to suggest something to refresh your mind, but I worry about asking for more energy from you, especially at your age.”_

_Garak squeezed the human tightly and nipped at the copper neck in rebuke. “At my age, I can still run circles around you.”_

_"Stalk circles, perhaps,” laughed Julian. “I have a rather difficult time imagining you running anywhere.”_

_"Elim would much rather fix the problem before it requires such barbarity,” said Kelas with a smile, coming behind Garak and nuzzling into his neck ridge. Garak shuddered under the dual assault, pulling Julian closer as he leaned into Kelas, letting the day roll off as he found Julian’s lips and kissed him hungrily._

_"Garak,” Julian sighed into his mouth._

“Garak?”

Garak inhaled sharply, dissipating the memory and focusing on the man standing at the doorway to the kitchen, the man who would not be kissing him any time soon. “Julian,” he said, his voice bland as he struggled to control the mind behind it.

“I see Shannon has already informed you of her decision,” Julian said, fidgeting with the towel in his hands.

“She was quite prompt,” Garak agreed.

“I said I was sorry,” Shannon interrupted.

“We’re only teasing, Shannon,” reassured Julian. “It’s a big deal, of course you want to minimize the waiting.”

“No reason to be rude to someone on their first day back to work, though.”

Julian smiled and Garak almost had to physically restrain himself from crossing the room and taking him into an embrace, from kissing that smile that was still sad until it returned to its Julian-Bashir level of brilliance. “Come on into the kitchen, would you, Garak? If you can tell us anything of your day, we’d be happy to listen.”

Shannon reached out and Garak took her arm. They entered the kitchen where Kelas was halfway through meal preparation. “Elim!” he said, his white hair frizzing out of its usual braid as it always did in his peculiarly specific kitchen energy. “Welcome home. I’m glad Cardassia hasn’t fallen without you these past octals.”

“It was a near thing, Kelas,” said Garak sternly, his blue eyes dancing in mirth. “Why, I only barely managed to save the treasury minister’s newest attempt to reallocate the latest discovery of a Central Command funding cache into building projects in Unt’ram. I appreciate the enthusiasm of remaking Prime for widespread habitation, but how anyone let him get so far into a project that will undoubtedly benefit very few when so much work remains closer to Cardassia City, I’ll never know.”

Shannon settled herself at the table, looking confused. “What position do you hold, exactly, Garak?”

Julian laughed as he gathered dishes. “What a bold question, Shannon! Be prepared, though, that you’ll get a different answer if you ask him again tomorrow, and probably yet a different one the day after that.”

Garak smoothed his tunic in mock affront. “I’m an honest minister of the government,” he said haughtily.

Kelas snorted at the counter.

“Minister of what?” asked Shannon.

“Odds and ends,” said Julian. “Garak’s background is rather…varied, shall we say, so he exists kind of in between departments. Do you know, I’ve forgotten what your actual title even is.” He paused and looked at Garak and suddenly the innocent humor stretched thin as Julian’s jaw tightened. “I’ve—I’ve completely forgotten,” he repeated.

“Councilor to Cardassian Reconstruction,” Garak said gently. “It’s a mouthful, and even I forget sometimes.”

“You don’t forget things,” Julian said, dropping his head in obvious frustration. He set the last of the dishes down and ran a hand through his hair, rubbing his head as though to jumpstart the brain within.

“Just about ready,” said Kelas as he brought his dish over, cutting into the tension between Garak and Julian with a knowing look. “I’d say surviving one’s first day back at work calls for a good meal. Have a seat, you two; follow Shannon’s good example.”

“Let me go change and clean up first, Kelas,” said Garak. “I won’t be long.”

Kelas nodded and Garak left, heading to their bedroom. He sagged against the doorframe for a moment, letting the frustrations and exhaustions of the day wash through him before dragging himself to the bathroom and splashing water over his face and hands. It was a habit he’d picked up from Julian and the reminder on top of the remembered flash of anger and fear in Julian’s eyes made his breath catch in his chest. He leaned on the counter for support, willing himself into the strength to have this dinner with a man whose mind had broken, the shattered pieces cutting through the hope he had carefully protected through the long day.

“So, was there anything thrilling enough to match my battle with the treasurer that happened here today?” Garak asked as he reentered the kitchen a few minutes later in a fresh tunic. “Apart, apparently, from Shannon realizing that I have my work cut out for me in the matchmaking department.”

The gentle banter shifted through explaining “matchmaking” to Kelas to Shannon’s delighted descriptions of the garden and Garak resolutely did not acknowledge that Julian would not look at him directly as they chattered.

***

After dinner, Shannon looked fit to burst with her anxiety and Garak took pity on her. “I’ll go send a message to Commander Dax now, Shannon,” he said, brushing his fingers over hers. “I’ve no idea where in the galaxy she is, so it will simply be a message to let her know to proceed rather than putting together details. Is that acceptable?”

Shannon nodded and Garak stood. “I’ll be back momentarily,” he said, and left.

Kelas stood to begin gathering the dishes and Julian passed him several plates, almost dropping one as Shannon announced, “I want to see him.”

“Yes, my dear,” said Kelas as he brought the dishes to the sink, “that is what Elim is messaging Dax about.”

“No,” said Shannon, and Julian waited, understanding. “I want to _see_ him. With my own eyes.”

Kelas turned back to the table. “Shannon, are you asking for an operation?”

“Julian said he could do it, with the right equipment. Your hospital has the right equipment.”

“It is still a very delicate procedure and you would need considerable time to heal. I thought you wanted to speak with Miagu as soon as possible.”

“Can’t we even get it started?”

Kelas and Julian shared a silent glance, both calculating resources, resiliency, recovery. “Let Julian and I talk it over, please?” Kelas said. “I want to know what he had in mind when he talked about the procedure to make sure we have everything that is needed.”

Julian pulled into himself, no longer making eye contact, and Shannon reached out in the direction of Kelas’ voice. “Dr. Parmak, it…it _can_ be done, right?”

Kelas sat and took her outstretched hand gently. “Yes, Shannon, but not perfectly. And not immediately. I also recommend that we not try to do both eyes together; your mind is going to have to remember how to take in sight, for one thing. It will take time.”

“And Julian’s skill.”

Kelas looked across the table at Julian who did not look back. “And a doctor’s skill,” he replied.

The three sat in stillness for a moment until Garak returned. “I’ve sent the message,” he said. “We should be hearing back from the commander by tomorrow.”

“Excuse me,” said Julian abruptly, pushing away from the table and sliding out behind Garak. Garak looked to Kelas, who put out a hand and shook his head before following Julian out, leaving Garak to sit with Shannon and hear all about the latest development.

“Julian,” Kelas said, standing at the threshold of the study—of Julian and Shannon’s bedroom.

“You and I both know I can’t do the surgery,” Julian said, standing next to the bed with his arms wrapped around himself.

“Perhaps you could—”

"I can’t even hold silverware without it hurting,” Julian interrupted. He turned back to Kelas and held out his hands. “I can’t do something as fine as ocular surgery, Kelas.” His hands shook slightly, the effort to keep them outstretched clear in Julian’s face.

“No,” said Kelas softly.

“I promised her. I promised her, and I got her hopes up, and now I’ll have failed her, too, and God if that isn’t completely in character.”

“Julian, no,” protested Kelas, “you didn’t fail her. You gave her hope.”

“That I’ll now have to take away.”

“I could do it.”

Julian stared at him. “The surgery? Kelas, you hate ophthalmology. Eye medicine,” he clarified to Kelas’ confusion. 

“I don’t hate it. I just know you’re better at it than I am.”

"Not anymore though, hey?” Julian laughed bitterly. “They took my safety, they took my marriage, they took my body, why not take my credentials, my skill, my bloody purpose. Clean sweep; best poker game ever.”

“Your skill is still there, Julian.”

"What does it matter if I _know_ a thing but can’t do it? My bones are all wrong, Kelas, you know that; you did enough scans.”

“But you never let me reset them, Julian. Yes, your nerves are misaligned; yes, your shoulder is wrong in the cup—”

“Socket.”

“Socket, then. But I can heal those. You know I can.”

“Fast enough for me to heal Shannon?”

Kelas exhaled in frustration. “You know I have to say no. Your body has much healing to do yet, Julian. Dr. Bashir. I don’t have to explain our work to you.”

“No, but you get to tell me how stupid I was not to let you fix it earlier so that I wouldn’t be so fucking useless now.”

“Julian, you are not useless.”

“No, just unable to be useful when someone is counting on me to be so. Big difference, I can definitely see it.”

Kelas closed his eyes and ran a finger down the ridge over his nose, an old soothing gesture. “Julian—”

The comm next to him chirped and Kelas jumped slightly. He looked again at Julian, trying to communicate that this was not over, before checking the sender and accepting the call.

“Dr. Parmak?” Ezri asked.

“Good evening, Commander,” Kelas returned. “Julian is here as well.”

“Julian!” she said, her tone decidedly more casual. “Where are you?”

Julian stepped into the frame and waved, tucking his arms back behind him. Knowing what to look for now, Kelas saw the brief spasm of pain cross through his eyes as the poorly-healed arm pulled. “Ez,” Julian said lightly, “it’s good to see you again.”

“It’s good to see _you_ , you beanpole. Dr. Parmak, have you been feeding him?”

“Every day at least once,” Kelas responded with a smile. “I hear some humans envy a meta—meta—”

“Metabolism,” supplied Julian without looking at him.

“Yes, metabolism, like his.”

“Well, you’re still adorable,” said Ezri. “And whatever you said to Shannon, I’m glad it worked. I got Garak’s message about setting up a comm meet and have sent a message of my own. If you don’t mind, I’d like to talk to him about what he had in mind for making that work—the message was a little cryptic.”

“Unsurprising,” said Kelas. “Let me go get him.”

“Julian,” said Ezri once Kelas had left, “how are you doing?”

Julian grimaced. “That has always been a terrible question.”

“Yep,” agreed Ezri, “but it’s one I’m honestly asking.”

“Do I look that awful?”

“Considering? No, actually. You look better than when I last talked to you. But you’re—you’re not you.”

“You can see that from how many light years away?”

“A lot, and yes. Even a subspace communication can’t lie about how pale you are and how you’re obviously in pain.”

Julian let go of his arms. “What do you mean?”

“You have a muscle in your jaw that you tense when you’re in physical pain,” Ezri said. “Jadzia noticed it, and then I studied it. It was a helpful tell, actually.”

“Glad to be helpful.”

“So, how are you doing?”

“If you can see I’m in pain, why are you asking?’

“Because I’m politely _not_ asking why a doctor married to a doctor is still in that much pain, especially an augmented doctor who has to be hurting pretty badly for it to register at all.”

“Commander,” said Garak as he entered, “so good of you to call.”

“Hi, Garak,” Ezri said, her eyes still on Julian. “Can we iron out some details about this? Now that you don’t have to worry about the message getting intercepted or whatever it was that made you basically use code to tell me to go ahead.”

Julian ducked out as Garak responded and Kelas followed him into the living room. “I’m fine, Kelas,” Julian said, keeping his voice low. “You don’t have to follow me around like a nurse.”

“Are you?”

“Completely.”

“Then why are you pulling on your bad arm?”

Julian looked down, let go, felt his body release in relief at the cessation of added pain. 

“Julian, you can walk me through the surgery. Tell me what to do. We’ve worked together before and I know enough to wield the tools. Your mind is sharp as ever.”

“Is it? The same mind that forgot Garak’s title, the one he was given while I was living with him? The same mind that didn’t recognize just now how I was causing myself pain? The same mind that can’t figure out why I won’t just let you reset the bone and fix my shoulder and do all of the things I know you can do? That mind? Sharp as a regnar’s tail, that one.”

“Julian—”

“You should do the surgery, Kelas; at least it can get done. Go tell Shannon the good news, would you? I’m going outside. Don’t worry,” he said to Kelas’ momentary alarm, “I promise not to go running off. Where would I go, anyway? I live on a planet of nightmares in a universe of demons; hanging out with the memories of the dead should be no problem at all.” He opened the front door and was gone; Kelas took a deep breath, and another, another, trying to calm his fear and anger and hurt and frustration all at once, wishing he could simply yell at Julian, at Garak, at the Organization, at everything that had broken these already broken men and now asked him to glue the pieces back together.

Yelling, he knew, would change nothing at all. Smoothing back his long hair, Kelas turned and caught the eye of Kukalaka back on his shelf. _Will you hold us together, little one?_ he asked silently, long past feeling foolish at having taken on his husband’s anthropomorphizing the toy. _I am beginning to doubt even in the night._

The bear looked steadily back at him, promising nothing, disavowing nothing, and Kelas went back to the kitchen to talk to Shannon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Unt'ram is a city I made up in "The Time of Year" because there are actually about five different maps for Cardassia and they don't match well. (I spent *a lot* of time trying to figure out Cardassian geography at one point.) It's waaaay out in the comparative boonies.
> 
> Still on #TeamParmak, sending that poor guy good vibes.


	15. Chapter 15

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a hell of a year, dear Reader, and in my tradition we're still in the season of Christmas, so have a bonus chapter to kick 2020 out and celebrate some kind of new hope. (Besides, for some of you it's already 2021 anyway.) Happy New Year!

Julian kicked at the dirt between the monuments as the Cardassian moons threw thin beginnings of shadows over the stones. He drank in the light that wasn’t filtered through a window, through the sterile steel of the ship that he still felt under his fingertips sometimes. He leaned against a pillar and held his hands out in front of him, clinically examining the tremors that shook the long fingers. He reached under his shirt, brushing over the raised ridges of scars and the tight slickness of the burns, pushing himself back into the chair that didn’t exist anymore, hearing his own screams bounce off the windowless walls. The slithering whisper of the hallucinations—surely they were hallucinations, he could differentiate that much now, couldn’t he?—at the foot of his bed in the Center caressed his mind like a scalpel. It was too much, trying to fit back in here; he had nothing to offer. He had nothing these people could want; Parmak had no use for him, Shannon had no use for him, Garak— 

_If you need me, Julian, Cardassia can wait._

The intensity of that promise sent a shock through Julian at least as powerful as the ones that had burned him. Julian remembered, long ago, the first conversations he and Garak had had about becoming more than friends and Garak’s deep fear of how badly Julian could be hurt were he to become noticeably attached to Elim Garak. It was almost satisfying, Julian thought with a dry chuckle, that it was Julian’s own past that had gotten him hurt over and over, not Garak’s—the Starfleet doctor taken by the Dominion, the Augment almost cast out of the Federation, the bleeding heart manipulated by Section 31, the xenophile cleansed of his perversities. It was Julian who was Julian’s most dangerous opponent and he had always known that better than Garak ever could, Garak whose enemies had faces and names, Garak who did not fear himself in the shadows. 

The treatment room faded as the moons continued to rise and the memory Julian would tell no one seeped into its place, rising heavy and cold in Julian’s chest, overpowering as the white room with white curtains where Michael told him he did not know how lucky he was to be saved from himself. 

_“_ _It’s been_ _six weeks_ _, Julian,” Michael says, tutting slightly at the thin man_ _seated ungracefully in the chair in front of him. “_ _Yet you still insist that you are healthy. Do you_ feel _healthy?”_

_Julian knows better, now, than to answer truthfully; knows better than to point out his malnutrition, his burns,_ _the chunks missing from his chest, the hairline fractures in_ _his fingers that all came from the “treatments” of this center that did not heal._ _But he doesn’t know how to lie yet, how to cover the anger and fear as though they are not eating him from the inside. He says nothing._

_“Come now, Julian,_ _you know that our weekly check-ins aren’t very useful if I do all the talking.”_

_“I don’t have much to say this week,” Julian_ _replies, faintly aware that his voice sounds wrong now, that the tones crack in odd places. He wonders if there will be permanent scarring on his vocal chords from the screaming._

_“I take it you’re beginning to realize, then, that we are here to help you,” Michael says, and his face folds in_ _concern so palpable Julian almost moves to brush it off himself. “Julian, Doctor, you know that it is against a healer’s_ _instinct to let someone continue in self-destructive behaviors.”_

_The comparison_ _crumbles_ _the wall Julian is still learning how to build._ _“It is also against a healer’s instinct to inflict pain and devastation, yet here we are,” he sneers_ _, furious at the misuse of his profession, his vocation._

_Michael’s look of concern remains but his eyes go flat. “_ _Sometimes, you have to re-break a bone to set it properly,” he says. “Surely you can understand that_ _we are trying to help you, Doctor, to save you from the way your illness is polluting your mind and body_ _, how badly it’s been hurting you—and_ _the Cardassians. Haven’t you noticed how much happier they look without you?”_

_Julian jerks his head away from the images in his mind of Parmak and Garak—no, no, of Kelas and Elim_ _—walking hand in hand, laughing, delighting in the first days of summer. He’d seen them just a few days before, in the treatment room, how happy—no. No, they wouldn’t—they were_ _a_ _triad, three together._

_“You’re a liar,” Julian says, perching on the edge of the chair, knowing this is going to end badly for him, far beyond caring. “I’m not sick for loving them, and they’re not hurt by loving me.”_

_“Oh, Julian,” Michael says, leaving his chair to come and kneel in front of Julian, trapping him with his arms, forcing Julian to scoot back to get away from Michael’s_ _presence. Michael leans forward, almost pinning Julian to the chair, and whispers in Julian’s ear, “_ _they will be.”_

_Julian starts in surprise, twisting so he can look at Michael,_ _shuddering at the complete lack of empathy in his face, the utter belief in himself. Julian has seen that kind of singular devotion on a man before, a man whose mind he had entered and had never quite been able to leave, and fear_ _reache_ _s_ _cold tendrils toward his heart. “What do you mean?” Julian whisper_ _s_ _back, somehow unable to speak at a normal volume with the other man this close,_ _a masquerade of intimacy._

_“We know where they live, Julian,” Michael_ _says_ _, “and we know they have a penchant for corrupting humans—even for corrupting other Cardassians. That Parmak, after all,_ _was in the camps for more than simple civil disobedience, wasn’t he? They spread sickness, Julian, and like all_ _such dangers, they must be quarantined and eliminated.”_

_Julian_ _shrinks_ _back. “They—they aren’t a threat, they aren’t…”_

_“_ _We will cure you, Julian, because we are healers. And_ _if you keep insisting on spreading your illness,_ _we will cure them._ _”_

_“No!”_ _shouts_ _Julian, pushing Michael away from him, and he_ _keeps_ _shouting it as the orderlies drag him away, as they lock him in his room with the lights that never turned off, as he_ _bang_ _s_ _against the door again and again, and when he finally slid_ _es_ _to the floor he underst_ _ands_ _that they_ _can_ _do whatever they want,_ _these people with their_ _utter belief in their cause._ _But if he would let himself be cured—if he would let himself be broken so that his beloveds could be whole_ _; maybe, maybe that would be enough. "Obedience is life," he whispers to himself, and he knows it is not his life he will save._

Shivering against the rock form on Cardassia Prime, remembering a threat that was more real than the moonlight, Julian Bashir wept until his mind withdrew for the night. 

***

“Shannon,” Kelas began as he reentered the kitchen, pulling his mind back from the human out alone amongst the memorials, “may we talk?” 

Shannon turned her head toward his voice. “Is it just you, Dr. Parmak?” 

“It is.” 

“Where’s Julian?” 

“He went outside for a bit.” 

“Is he all right?” 

Kelas couldn’t stop his small sigh. 

“I’ll take that as a no,” Shannon said. “Anything—well, is it anything more than usual?” 

Kelas smiled wryly. “Not really, but I did want to talk to you about—about the surgery.” 

“He can’t do it.” 

Sitting next to her, Kelas shook his head absently. “No, but it’s not because it can’t be done. He can’t personally be the one to wield the instruments, but I believe we have the tools and he has the knowledge, so he can talk me through what he had in mind. I didn’t want to move ahead without your permission for it to be me operating on you rather than him, however.” 

Shannon’s body stiffened slightly and Kelas watched her deliberately relax. “Why can’t he do it?” 

“His…injuries are still healing, also.” 

“Bastards.” 

“I’m sorry?” 

“The Organization.” Shannon stood, turning away from the table, reaching out until she pushed against the wall. “They took my eyes and they took his hands. Pretty neat, how they’ve robbed us both of our professions in the name of healing us.” 

Kelas grimaced at hearing Julian’s accusations on Shannon’s tongue. “But both can be healed,” he said. “It will just take time.” 

“And you, it seems.” 

Kelas shrugged before remembering that she couldn’t see him. “It seems,” he said. 

“It is set then,” said Garak as he came back into the room. “The commander will contact Mr. Tir and will attempt to set something up for next octal.” 

Shannon reached out for the chair and slid back into it weakly. “So soon,” she said. 

“You seemed not to want to wait.” 

She shrugged this time. “Means we should hurry with that surgery, then.” 

“Shannon,” said Kelas, “this is not a surgery to be ‘hurried,’ but we can set it for the day after tomorrow if you like. I do need your permission to be the doctor, however.” 

Garak looked at Kelas in surprise, raising an eyeridge in silent question. _Later_ , Kelas signaled to him, not wanting to disrupt Shannon’s train of thought. 

“Do you need the permission right now?” Shannon asked, looked at her clasped hands on the table. 

“No,” said Kelas. 

“Because I appreciate it, you see, but—well, I don’t have the same kind of reaction to you that Julian does because it’s not, I mean, it’s not intimate, but…” She trailed off, clenching her fingers. “You are an alien, after all, and it’s; I mean, you were so gentle when you healed my shoulder this morning, but—it’s hard to…I’m sorry,” she said, lifting her head to their general direction. “I can only imagine how insulting this must sound.” 

“You were told to trust humans only,” said Kelas. “Given that I am not human, I am unsurprised that it is uncomfortable to think of being under my care.” 

“But you were so kind to me in the hospital!” she said, slapping one hand on the table. “I just—it’s constant, do you know that? I don’t know if Julian has explained this to you, but there’s a never-ending thread underneath everything, every minute in this house, on this planet, about how you two are untrustworthy, almost unclean, that you’re going to make me sicker like Miagu made me sick, that everything about you is horrible and it’s so much—it’s so much _hate_ in my head and I don’t want that, I don’t want to be like that, like …like _them_.” Her breathing shivered in her chest as she put her face in her hands, rubbing the scarred eyes forcefully. “You are wrong and I am wrong but at least I was close to becoming right, except I’m not right, am I? I’m blind and trapped on a planet with aliens even more foreign than my—than Miagu and I’m wrong for him and he’s wrong for me but then the Organization is wrong for everyone, surely, no one who actually heals would do the things they did. Right?” 

Her unfocused gaze swung toward Kelas, who stumbled at the blunt suddenness of the question. 

“Right,” said Garak, laying his hand on the table so that his fingertips touched hers, not reacting when she flinched away. “Yes, we are alien to you, but that does not mean we are horrible. Being Cardassian is perhaps the one thing that redeems me, some days.” Kelas looked up at him sharply, but Garak’s gaze remained on Shannon. “Think about how Miagu treated you, Shannon,” he said, his voice soft. “Think about how he loved you. Think about how Kelas has treated you, and the nurses. Think about our conversations. And then think about the ways the Healing Center treated you. Tell me, Shannon; which is wrong? The aliens who care for you? Or the humans who break you?” 

“It’s not all humans,” she said quickly, drawing back even further. “Don’t paint us all like that.” 

“I was not, Shannon, I apologize. I know many humans are lovely; I married one, after all.” Kelas did not miss the small spasm across Garak’s face, quickly controlled. “But is it not your Federation that has the phrase ‘actions speak louder than words’?” 

Shannon began to rock slightly. “It is so hard to override them,” she said, her voice almost inaudible. 

“Then don’t,” Garak said. “Go around them. If they are telling you that Dr. Parmak is too alien to operate on you, tell them that you need your sight back to get away from us and Kelas is a necessary evil.” He put a hand on Kelas’ shoulder and squeezed gently, conveying the apology and the reassurance. Kelas reached up and hung onto the hand, glad Shannon could not see this connection. 

“It’s a lie.” 

“Is it? Truth is in the eye—ah, your pardon—the mind of the beholder. If it is a thing that allows you to move toward safety, who’s to say it is a lie?” 

Shannon pondered this and Kelas marveled at his husband’s reframing of his own malleable belief in truth. Garak the comforter was not foreign to him, but seeing how often it came out in care of Shannon was a wondrous thing. 

“I—let me sleep on it, okay?” said Shannon timidly. 

“Of course,” Kelas said. “Take all the time you need.” 

“I think I should go to bed now.” 

“A wise idea,” said Kelas, standing with her. “Can you find your way?” 

“I think so.” She stood, fingertips running along the wall as she left the kitchen, and Kelas could not quite suppress his frustration at how she flinched back when she briefly bumped against Garak near the doorway. 

“Elim, that—” 

“Where is Julian?” 

“He’s out front.” 

“Alone?” 

Kelas sighed. “Yes, alone. He is frustrated that he can’t do the surgery, Elim; he needed to process that by himself.” 

“It is dangerous and foolish,” Garak said, keeping his movements quiet but firm as he swept out of the kitchen toward the front door. 

Kelas followed him out, shutting the door behind them. “Elim, wait.” 

“And you let him go, what were you thinking?” 

“Elim Garak, stop right now.” Kelas heard the steel in his own voice as he switched back into the Kardasi that would allow him to voice the anger that couldn’t go anywhere, the tension that hummed under everything these days. Garak stopped but did not turn. “I know you’re tired, and I know you’re worried, and I’m willing to bet that you spent the entire day fretting about whether any of us would be here when you returned.” Garak’s shoulders tensed slightly, just enough for Kelas to see it in the moonlight. “But don’t you dare accuse me of putting him in danger, don’t you dare. I am trying to care for them both as best I know how, and keeping him on a short leash isn’t doing anyone any favors and could very well backfire into him thinking us the monsters they told him we are.” 

Garak sighed and his whole body seemed to deflate. He turned back to Kelas and Kelas swallowed at the pain in those crystal blue eyes that shone even in the dim light. “I can’t lose him again, Kelas.” 

Kelas stepped forward, gently putting his hands on Garak’s jawridges. “I know,” he said. “But you will lose him while he’s right in front of you if you treat him like a prisoner.” 

Garak swept Kelas to him, clutching him tightly. “I need him to be okay,” he said against Kelas’ shoulder. 

Kelas returned the embrace, not knowing what to say, not wanting to keep promising something he could not guarantee. 

Garak broke his hold and turned away. “I need to at least find him,” he said, and Kelas nodded at his back, turning away to sit in the living room. 

“Julian?” Garak called amid the monuments, wondering at the landscape in the silvery light. It was beautiful, here; he had started to forget that it could be beautiful. 

It was even more so when, at last, he found the doctor curled up at the base of a monument, asleep, his bronze skin glinting against the grey of the stone behind him. Garak knelt beside him, letting the rush of relief flow through him like the moonlight, noting the dried tear tracks on Julian’s angular face. “If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster and treat those two imposters just the same,” Garak said softly, wondering at the poem fragment that drifted into his mind from some long-forgotten lunch conversation. “If you can hold on when there is nothing in you…Oh, Julian,” he breathed. “Come back to me, Julian, please.” He brushed the hair back from the human’s forehead. “Don’t you know that I am no longer myself without you?” 

Garak eased a hand under Julian’s head and one under his knees. Ignoring the protest from his own aging joints, he stood with Julian in his arms, gently carrying him inside and tucking him into bed before fleeing to his other husband who held him close as they fell asleep together. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The lines Garak calls to mind are from the poem "If--" by Rudyard Kipling.


	16. Chapter 16

“My dear, what are you doing up so early?” Garak asked in surprise the next morning as he entered the kitchen to find Shannon sitting alone. “Did you not sleep well?”

She shook her head. “I couldn’t find the tea.”

“Well, that’s no problem. I’ll just—”

“ _ No _ , Garak,” she said, and he paused,  coming to sit beside her. “You don’t understand. I couldn’t find the tea, not because I don’t know where the kitchen is or where your cabinets are but because I can’t  _ see  _ them.”

“And you’ve not been here long enough to memorize Kelas’  configuration,” Garak said mildly. “It is not sight alone that teaches us to navigate.”

“ Do you think I don’t know that?” Shannon’s clouded eyes swung up to focus on his shoulder.

“I think you know it better than I will ever be able to understand,” Garak answered, “but I sense that you are not merely annoyed about not having memorized the  cabinetry yet.”

“ _ I can’t see _ ! Do you—do you know how  _ infuriating  _ that is? How  sick I am of others treating me like a child because they think I can’t do anything? How —” she pulled back into herself, “how afraid I am that they might be right?”

Garak took a deep breath and settled more fully in the chair. “You seem quite capable to me.”

“You’ve seen me navigate  exactly one household—and that poorly,” she said.

“Are you worried that Miagu might only see you as a child now?”

Her arms wrapped around her torso , the brown fading into peach at the tension in her hands.  _ Right in one _ , Garak thought to himself.

“So I have to let Dr. Parmak do the surgery,” she said, her voice small.

“No,” said Garak, “you do not  _ have  _ to do anything.”

“But don’t you see? If—if he rejects me,  it has to be because of me, because  _ I  _ am not what he wants. If he rejects me because of what they’ve done—because of who I’ve become…it just makes them right , about how humans are better with humans, how aliens don’t understand.”

Garak set aside the circuitous logic for later, or never, realizing that unraveling it would help neither of them. “Are you so set on his rejecting you, then? Is that your preferred outcome?”

“No !”

“Then let it be one of many.” Garak could feel the tactician within him rising in interest; play the odds, find the best course, minimize the damage, preserve—

_ No _ , he said to himself. The skills were useful here, but to play it out all the way would end with Shannon alone, as he himself had been alone for so long until he had told the tactician to  take a trip out an airlock and written every explanation he could bear to give to the human who had never stopped offering him more evens than odds.

“What do you mean?” Shannon was asking as Garak pulled himself back to the present.

“If you want to have Dr. Parmak work on your eyes— _ want _ , not ‘feel you must’—then do so. Go into the conversation with Miagu with one eye wide open, offering the you who survived the idea that the two of you are cosmically unbalanced.  Allow him to react however he reacts; if he accepts you with one eye, wonderful. If you decide not to have the surgery and he accepts you blind, wonderful. If he accepts you and then you have both eyes  restored, wonderful. If he doesn’t accept you with any amount of eyes and you stay here with us or you wander through this vast galaxy in search of something else, wonderful.  _ You _ are the constant, Shannon, you and your  refusal to stop being yourself no matter who else is around you.”

“You would let me stay with you?” The shock in her tone made Garak realize what a n incredible offer that really was, and a part of him wanted to take the opportunity to withdraw it.  He had enough on his hands in  getting Julian back to some semblance of healthy; did he really want a second human interfering?

“I cannot unilaterally make that decision in a house owned by three,”  _ coward _ , “but  I doubt very highly that either Julian or Dr. Parmak would consent to any notions of tossing you out in the street.”

“Not the same as actually wanting me here,” Shannon mumbled, and Garak  felt a twinge of annoyance that she was quite right.

“You are welcome here, Shannon,” he said instead, laying his fingers  next to hers to barely brush in the way they had developed. “With however many seeing eyes you choose to have—although I might put my foot down should you ask Parmak for more than two . It is a prejudice, I admit, but given that most species I have met have only the pair of eyes I find it rather disconcerting when there are more.”

Shannon chuckled lightly. “Why are you so nice to me, Garak?”

“Nice?” Garak considered. “ It is not often that ‘nice’ and I share company in a sentence without negation.”

“Yet here we are,” Shannon answered, waving her hand at the space between them. “So, why?”

Garak pondered her for a moment, weighing the truth and all its lies. “I know what it is to be the odd one out,” he said at last, choosing a middle ground. “And I know how important it can be to find a—friend when there did not appear to be one.” He frowned at the slight catch , at the inconvenience of the memory of a young man with a  starburst smile chattering away about Cardassian enigma tales with fierce and beautiful indignation.

“Were you lonely, before Julian?”

The question cut deep and Garak’s ingrained reaction to slide away from it kicked in hard. “Ah, my dear Shannon,  has he been telling tales of me? He does rather love to fashion himself the—oh, what is the human image…the shining white knight come to rescue us poor, forlorn  damsels in distress."

Shannon snickered. “You are far from a damsel, Mr. Garak.”

“ It’s just plain, simple Garak,” came a voice from the doorway, and Garak looked up to see Julian in all his sleep-tousled glory leaning on the frame. “Never been much of one for titles, that Garak.”

“Good morning, Julian,” said Shannon over her shoulder. “I hope we didn’t wake you.”

“Not at all,” Julian replied, looking at Garak. “I’m rather unsure how I made it to bed in the first place, to be honest. ”

Garak held his gaze steady, giving away nothing . Shannon shrugged. “I was asleep by the time you came in, so I can’t help.”

“I should be heading on to work,” Garak said, standing when he could bear the knowing question in Julian’s eyes no longer. “Shannon,” he said, leaning in and speaking softly, “shall I make you some tea?”

She bit her lip and nodded, and Garak made cups for them both before  wishing them goodbye,  fiercely holding in check the desire to kiss his husband as he once did.

“Julian?” Shannon asked after Garak had gone, her hands wrapped around the warmth of the mug even though the day was already mild by human standards.

“Mmm?” Julian responded, inhaling the tea’s scent,  holding himself steady against it.

“Do you trust Dr. Parmak?”

Julian set down his mug. “Trust him for what?”

“For the surgery. Do you trust him?”

“Of course I do.”

“Then why won’t you let him work on you?”

Julian sighed, realizing he should have seen that coming. “Professional pride, I suppose.”

“That’s  shit , Julian.” Her gaze, though half a meter to his  left, was fierce enough to tell him that this was not the time for blitheness. He tried to channel his inner Garak, lacing the truth with enough lies—or was it the lie with enough truth?—to make it bearable for them both.

“ It’s not because I don’t trust his skill, Shannon. Kelas is a fine doctor, a better than fine doctor; he’s an instrumental part of the way Cardassia City has been able to rebuild  after the Dominion War and deal with the sheer amount of casualties and illnesses in its fallout. He’s an amazing person who is—who is so strong, and smart, and caring.” Julian trailed off, realizing he’d let the lie fall, let the truth have too much room to move.

“Julian,” Shannon said, reaching out for him and tangling his fingers in hers when he touched her hand, “ it’s okay to still love him.”

“No, Shannon, it’s not, and you know better than anyone that it’s not,” Julian said heatedly, pulling his hand back. “We were getting better.”

“We were getting worse, Julian.” She  sat up abnormally straight in her chair. “ I want you to supervise.”

“Supervise what?”

“The surgery. I don’t know why you can’t do it yourself and I won’t ask, but if you say I should trust Dr. Parmak, then I trust you—but I want you to be there.  I want to see a human when I can see again.”

“Shannon, I—”

“Please?”

Julian looked at her, at the way her skin was still stretched just a little too taut over her  cheekbones, at the way her hair was starting to gloss slightly after the last of the drugs cycled out of her system .  _ Why not take my skill, my purpose? _ he heard  echoing in his mind. He was a doctor, wasn’t he?  Could he turn down a patient, a friend, asking for his help?

“I’ll be there,” he said, and he was glad she couldn’t see the way his hands trembled around his cup.

***

It was not long after that  Kelas , fully dressed with his long white braid tamed and gleaming, came into the kitchen. “Good morning, you two,” he said .  “What say we have another bout of fresh air in the garden today, hmm?”

“I want you to do the surgery,” Shannon responded.

Kelas’ hands stilled in his breakfast preparations.  Steadying himself, he turned toward the table. “Are you sure, Shannon?”

“Julian has promised that he’ll be there to supervise,” she said, “and that your medical skills are trustworthy.  I just—I made him promise that he’ll be what I see first, when I can see.”

“Shannon, I must remind you that it will take time to heal; sight may not come for a day or so after the surgery and even then may be blurry.”

“Still.  I  _ need  _ it to be a human I see, Dr. Parmak, and I’m sure that’s insulting and I’m sorry, but it’s also true.”

Kelas held in his sigh. “ I am not insulted by you stating  what you need in a delicate  surgery , Shannon. It is good that I know as much as I can so that I do not accidentally injure you.”

“So when can we do this?”

Kelas looked at Julian, who shrugged. Kelas did not miss the subtle wince that followed the movement of his injured shoulder and clenched his jaw in annoyance that such an easily mended thing was still allowed to cause pain. _ It is not yours to hurry, Kelas _ , he reproached himself. “I will comm the hospital after breakfast and see what we can set up,”  he said to Shannon.

“After breakfast?”

“All days must begin with a meal,” Kelas said. “Every doctor knows this.”

“They didn’t always,” Shannon mumbled , and Kelas closed his eyes against  his own frustration that always slid just under the surface at the  seemingly endless depths of maltreatment the humans had endured. Starvation didn’t surprise him—he knew from firsthand experience what an effective means of breaking someone it could be . But it angered him, nonetheless.

“ This one does ,” he said briskly, pushing away memories of too-long days  with too little food before being shoved into the barracks in the labor camp for the night. His fingers ached briefly in sympathy and he unconsciously stretched them against the counter when he turned back to the food.

“Kelas?” Julian asked, and  Kelas looked over his shoulder.

“Yes?”

Julian looked at Shannon before standing to come around the table, coming so close that  Kelas could feel  the heat of his  warm-blooded body. Kelas nearly swooned  in the ferocity of desire and worry and hope and  restraint. Julian reached out  but pulled his hand back, keeping the distance. “Are your hands hurting this morning?”

Kelas looked at him,  at the face that was close enough that he could kiss him if he leaned forward  _ just so _ —“Only a bit,” he said, swallowing down his  longing.

“You stretch them like that when they hurt,” Julian said , and Kelas’ eyes widened that Julian should remember such a thing, that he had noticed in the first place.  “Do you—do you need anything, for the pain?”

Gobsmacked, Kelas simply stared at him. 

“Kelas?”

“What? No; thank you, Julian, no. It will fade. It always does.”

Julian looked almost shy as he began to back away and Kelas, his body moving faster than his brain, reached out and clasped his hand. Julian’s whole body shuddered and Kelas instantly let go. “I’m sorry, Julian, I’m—I didn’t think,” stumbled Kelas desperately.

Julian looked over at Shannon behind Kelas’ back, his face a tumbling whirl of emotions, before he drew a deep breath and tentatively took Kelas’ hand in  both of his own. Slowly, as though he were relearning where they were,  Julian rubbed the joints holding together bones that had been broken and mended more times than Kelas wanted to count. His head bent to the task as Kelas simply watched,  as he tried to process this human who was in constant pain in mind, body, and soul pushing through his own barriers to bring comfort to the warped fingers of a Cardassian.

He hissed in pain when Julian pushed a little too hard on  the flesh under his thumb and Julian instantly let go, his face closed in fear.

“Julian?” Kelas asked.

Julian shook his head, holding his hand out ,  _ wait _ .

Kelas waited.

“Julian?” Shannon called.

“He’s clearing his mind, Shannon,” Kelas said, unsure of how to describe  what was happening in front of him in any language. “Give it a moment.”

The three of them breathed in tense silence as finally, finally Julian returned, his face haggard as though he had just run  the breadth of Cardassia City. “Kelas?” he said uncertainly.

“I’m here, Julian.”

Another shudder rippled through the thin frame. “I’m sorry, I—I didn’t mean…I hope I didn’t hurt you.”

“No, Julian, no,” Kelas soothed. “I’m fine.”

Julian closed his eyes and swallowed deeply. “Just when I think I can out-maneuver them,” he whispered , “I find another way they’ve trapped me.”

Kelas heard Shannon’s chair scrape behind them as she stood. “Then keep walking,”  she said. 

“Shannon—”

“No, Julian. I don’t know what just happened—which is yet another reason we need to get this surgery going, Dr. Parmak , because I’m pretty useless just existing in a room while the two of you dance around each other—but I know that if you found a way around them for even five seconds, then there’s a possibility. They shut the door, you find another. You find a vent shaft , if you need to.”

Julian huffed in exasperation. “You know it’s not that easy, Shannon.”

“I know it’s exactly that hard, Julian.”

Parmak felt, suddenly, like he was witnessing something that was absolutely not for him.

“ You went even further in, Shannon, you know it’s not like that.”

“Not like what? Not like spending every second building a wall that their voices tear down in an instant? Not like  trying to grab air with your bare hands and put it into a box? Not like trying to dance on broken feet?”

Julian  folded his arms around himself, saying nothing.

“To stand in the same room as a Cardassian and pretend like that’s okay is taking everything I have, Julian,  and I’m pretty sure that’s true for you, too. But I will stand here, and I will pretend, and I will see again, and I will talk to Miagu, and I will  burn them out of me because my sister cannot win, the orderlies cannot win,  _ Michael _ cannot win.”

Julian’s head swung up, the fear naked in his features , in his rigidity. “Don’t bring him into this, Shannon.”

“He’s already here!” She slapped her hand flat on the table. “Do you think I don’t  hear him whispering his disappointment that I’d almost completed the program and now I’m turning my back on it? Do you think I ’m not terrified  that even though the ship  _ doesn’t even exist anymore  _ he’s going to find me and lock me in the meditation room again? He loved doing that, you know, talked about how it was a great way for me to strengthen the senses I had left after they blinded me—excuse me, __ after  _ my illness _ made me blind.” Her face contorted in anger, the scarring around her blank eyes stretching white against brown. “As though it wasn’t their fault, as though  _ I  _ was the one who was wrong, everything was my—” Her  body twisted, suddenly, and she grabbed onto the table, doubling over. Kelas, being closer, caught her just as she fell. “Was my fault,” she whispered, “everything was my fault, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Michael, I didn’t mean it,” she trembled in Kelas’ arms.

“Shannon,” Kelas soothed,  smoothing a hand over her hair.

“Kelas, it might not be good for you to be the one—”

Shannon twined her fists into Kelas’ shirtfront. “ _ Break me of them _ ,” she hissed into his chest. “You’re an alien, an outcast,  a freak like me, someone who loves the wrong people.” She slid her hands up over Kelas’ collarbones, his neck ridges, holding his face firmly in her palms. Kelas  held himself still, beyond uncomfortable at the forced intimacy, at his own shadows that shouted in his mind,  breathing through his own rising panic.

“Shannon,” he said, his voice  slightly uneven, “please let go of me.”

“Will you fix me?”

“I will do what I can. Please, Shannon,” he said, and  he barely registered Julian’s hands pulling Shannon’s away, Julian guiding Shannon over Kelas’ legs to curl against him , Julian holding her tightly as she wept apologies to ghosts and living alike. Kelas focused on his own grounding, on feeling the floor beneath him that was  warm  planks , was not the stone of the Obsidian Order’s cells , was not the rough wood of the barracks after another day of  being told he was a freak, an outcast, a sullied thing, a deviant.

He did, however, register Julian sliding one hand into his, gentle, light. Kelas looked up in shock, trying to focus on that  ridgeless face, and Julian squeezed his hand while rocking Shannon, seeing the way Kelas  could not be the anchor in this moment. The compassion in those hazel eyes drowned Kelas for a moment and he held onto them, squeezed hard  the human hand in his, swam through the interrogations and the camp and the fear until he was sitting on his own kitchen floor again , looking Julian Bashir in the eye while they held hands behind the quivering bundle of  a grieving woman.

_ I told him he was one of the strongest people I’d ever met _ , Kelas heard echoing in his mind, and suddenly he understood that even that was an understatement as Julian, satisfied that Kelas was back, let go of his hand and wrapped himself fully around Shannon.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I won't lie, I'm kind of in love with the idea that the kitchen is Kelas' little kingdom and both Julian and Garak know better than to mess with that. Also, I really appreciate the way y'all are coming with me on this being about everybody's trauma and not just Julian and Shannon's--everybody's a mess, so there would definitely be moments like this for Kelas' stuff to surface.


	17. Chapter 17

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Note of apology: I am not at all an ophthalmologist, nor do I play one on TV. I am not a doctor of any stripe and can only claim having worked as a hospital chaplain for a year and having done a lot of online reading for this as my medical background, so if I'm way off the mark on what this surgery would look like, please let me know.
> 
> Also, for those who get squeamish around medical procedures, there is one. I did try not to be terrifically graphic about it, but fair warning. It's the stuff after the set of asterisks (***).

It took a surprisingly short period of time to arrange the surgery, Julian thought—but then, already having the surgeon literally in-house and him having nothing else on his calendar for the next octal at least was quite helpful in that endeavor. The date was set—four days out—and Ezri was informed that the call between the two estranged spouses would have to wait until at least two days after that. She agreed, saying the near-week gave her time to have a conversation with Tir, one joined Trill to another, about what to expect.

Nobody mentioned that it also gave Tir time to get his initial shock and rage and whatever else out before he saw what had happened to Shannon. Shannon had agreed that Tir could know she was blind, but not how she got that way. As Garak relayed the information, he was privately glad nothing similar had happened to Julian; the emotional scars were brutal and the physical ones were difficult, but if the Organization had blinded his beloved enjoined through torture and incompetence, he would not have stopped at one disintegrated ship.

The days leading up to the surgery passed in an odd state of suspended animation; Garak went to work and came home, trying not to draw the growing parallels he could see between his broken husband and the still-healing wounds of his homeland. Parmak and Shannon walked through the gardens, familiarizing themselves with each other as Shannon not-so-subtly decided whether she really could trust a doctor again, let alone an alien one.

And Julian buried himself in medical data. Journals, articles, textbooks, videos; it seemed as if he were determined to memorize the whole branch of ophthalmology in an octal. His augmented brain could indeed take in a great deal of information, but so much after so many months of so little study or learning worried Garak and Kelas both. The drugs were also still not fully out of his system and the long hours of concentration made him lightheaded and unfocused. Garak came home two of the four days to find Julian kneeling next to the data console with his hands on his head as he breathed deeply, calming the nausea and paranoia and sense of alienation from his own mind. None of the three of them mentioned Julian’s obsession, all of them instinctively knowing that Julian had to prove himself in this as fiercely as Shannon had to go through with it. It was only when Julian and Kelas had been discussing the likelihood of any damage to the trochlear nerve that Shannon reminded them both, quite loudly, that she was not only still present but quite awake and did not appreciate being talked around like a specimen—like a sick person they were planning to cure no matter her wishes.

Both of them were silent for some time after that.

The day of the surgery arrived. Garak had offered to take off work and Kelas had finally compromised to a half-day, reassuring Garak that it wasn’t any use to anyone for Garak not to be at the office while the other three were at the hospital. Garak would leave work a few hours early to meet them and bring Kelas home—Julian had stated flatly that he would be staying at the hospital while Shannon recovered.

All four were awake early, though the surgery wasn’t for several hours yet. Julian was attempting to hide his fidgeting from Kelas and Garak, who politely did not comment on how obvious it was anyway. Shannon sat on the couch in the living room looking at the window, perhaps imagining what she would see there. Kelas walked with Garak to the door to see him off to work, and Garak reached up to twine his fingers in the white hair.

“You are a skilled doctor,” Garak said.

Kelas smiled faintly. “And I have a skilled doctor advising me, right?”

Garak tightened his fingers, brushing his thumb over the splotch of whiter scales overlapping the grey at Kelas’ temple. “But _you_ are a skilled doctor, Kelas. Do not forget that whatever else happens, you are able to do this. She trusts you to do this. _I_ trust you to do this.”

Kelas opened his mouth, closed it, held a hand up to cover Garak’s. “But does he?”

Garak kissed him, lightly. “I will see you this afternoon.”

“Have fun saving Cardassia,” Kelas quipped, and Garak gave him a look before leaving.

“So,” Kelas said as he turned back to the humans, “Shannon can’t eat and Julian won’t, it seems, which makes breakfast a moot point. Shall we take a turn in the garden or read something together?”

“Would you mind reading?” Shannon said from the couch. “It’s—it’s been ages since I’ve read anything, or heard anything read.”

“They weren’t big on books at the Center,” Julian continued. “I don’t know why, considering there are plenty that drum up the human race’s superiority, and even smaller sections within it. Hell, they could have made us have a book club on _Mein Kampf_ ; it would have been in character.”

Kelas looked at him, leaning against the kitchen doorframe, and gauged that mood. It was teetering on the edge of grimness, which would not be helpful in the mutability of surgery. “A book indeed, then,” Kelas said, “although I think I would ask Julian to read, if he’s willing—my written Standard is not nearly as strong as speaking.”

“Do you want me to choose, as well? Or do you think a Cardassian enigma tale proper to the occasion?” asked Julian, unconscious of the challenge in the question.

“I think Shannon might enjoy some of the human works we have that you and Elim enjoy,” replied Kelas, deliberately keeping his tone mild. “Perhaps _Travels with Charles_?”

Julian snorted. “With ‘Charley,’ Kelas. _Travels with Charley_. It’s the author’s dog.”

“I had a dog when I was a girl,” Shannon said.

“It’s a travel memoir,” Julian explained. “Nonfiction.”

“That’s all right. We won’t get through it all today, anyway.”

Julian looked at Kelas, who shrugged, and sighed. “Well, okay. Let me go get the padd.” 

Shannon patted the cushion next to her and Kelas sat, surprised when she leaned into his shoulder, unsurprised at the shudder that ran through her before she stilled. His scales were of no comfort to her, but his presence had become so. _What a different a few octals makes_ , he thought to himself.

Julian turned from the bookshelf and took in the pair of them, one eyebrow arched in surprise. Kelas winked at him and Julian’s smile seemed startled out of him, uncertain of the playfulness in the room as the tension tried to regain control. Julian looked for a second at the open space on Kelas’ other side, his long fingers gripping tightly around the side of the padd, before ducking his head and sitting on the chair opposite, settling in. “When I was very young,” he began, “and the urge to be someplace else was on me, I was assured by mature people that maturity would cure this itch.” Kelas leaned back to better take in that slightly clipped accent, letting the Standard wash over him as the sound of his beloved’s voice, careful not to disturb Shannon as her fingers wrapped into his shirt sleeve. Julian continued, “When years described me as mature, the remedy prescribed was middle age. In middle age I was assured that greater age would calm my fever and now that I am fifty-eight perhaps senility will do the job. Nothing has worked.”

***

“I’ll be right here,” said Julian as Shannon gripped his hand tightly, her sightless eyes bouncing around the operating theater. The Cardassian doctors and nurses wove around the two humans, setting the last of the instruments and lines.

“Excuse me, Doctor,” one said quietly. “It’s time to activate the neural caliper.”

Julian clenched his free hand at the shivers the Kardasi sentence sent through him. _You’re here for her_ , he reminded himself tightly. “I’ll see you on the other side,” he said, and released Shannon’s hand to step back as the nurse tapped the device on Shannon’s smooth forehead. Julian dimly remembered having to rewire a Cardassian caliper for that oddity when he first arrived at Parmak’s insistence. _What shall I do if a building falls on you?_ Parmak had asked. _Better to be prepared than caught off-guard._

How curious that Parmak’s prudence would be paying off in such an unexpected way now; there were not, after all, that many humans who came through the Cardassian hospital system.

“Shall we, Doctor?” Parmak said, jolting Julian back to the present as Shannon’s eyes fluttered closed. The readings from the nurse encouraged them to move forward and Parmak set to clamping the lids open on Shannon’s left eye.

The sight brought the treatment room roaring back into Julian’s mind, the feeling of the metal barbs digging into his own frontal bone ridge.

"Doctor?” Parmak asked. “Are you well?” _Can you do this when we haven’t even started?_

“Fine,” Bashir answered, shaking himself. He took a deep breath and leaned over, careful to keep his hands to himself. “There is certainly scarring on both the cornea and the sclera,” he said, swinging a magnifying lens between them. “I believe that the original damage,” _steady_ , “affected the anterior chamber, causing glaucoma,” he gestured, “here. I think it was the restoration effort that scratched the ciliary body underneath the sclera here.”

“Amateurs,” Parmak said scathingly, slipping into Kardasi in his frustration. His hands were steady and sure, peeling back the layers of scar tissue and clearing the unbalanced humor beneath. He stopped a moment and looked across to Bashir. “Just as you said. Were you able to examine her?”

“Briefly,” Bashir answered, following him into Kardasi, feeling slightly sickened by its consonants on his tongue. _Go away_ , he told the specters in his mind. _I’m busy_. 

Parmak grinned. “By the gods, you’re good. For you to have visualized the whole eye without having seen any of it and diagnosed all that?”

 _Benefits of having a freak’s mind_ , Bashir answered silently. “I’m glad they weren’t fool enough to try and go any further; they could well have been so clumsy as to nick the—the opthalmic artery," he said, switching back into Standard. He realized he didn’t know the Kardasi equivalent and wondered that he had never had to learn it before.

“Our scans don’t show any bone chips in the—the roof or floor,” Parmak answered, following him across the languages but running into his own vocabulary’s lack.

“Good,” said Bashir, his fingers itching to help as Parmak’s nurses handed Parmak the right tools, Bashir’s twinging shoulder and trembling hands reminding him that it was impossible. The pair continued to work, crossing back and forth through Kardasi and Standard, the intricacies of surgery sweeping them along. 

After two and a half hours, Parmak unhooked the last barb, allowing Shannon’s eye to drift closed, and began to bandage her head to protect the healing area. “Well, Dr. Bashir, we have done what we can,” he said, his eyes positively twinkling behind his face mask. He stretched, backing away from the table. “We’ll give her a few hours before letting her come back.” He gestured to Bashir to follow him out of the theater and they shucked off their scrubs. “Your knowledge made that possible, Julian,” he said, gesturing back to the table where the nurses were preparing to shift Shannon to a mobile bed. “ _You_ made that possible.”

Julian shrugged and winced. His body felt tight as a spring and he looked at Shannon, unconscious in a room full of Cardassians, half of her head wrapped up like a mummy. _She was so_ _brave_ , he thought. _I want to be as brave as her—as brave as Garak thinks I am._

“Do you have another moment, Dr. Parmak?”

Parmak paused, surprised. “What do you need?”

“I—I have a torn shoulder that needs resetting, if you’re free.”

Parmak studied him a moment, concern and hope warring in his eyes. “Quite free,” he said. He snagged a nurse coming out in her own scrubs and asked for an available room, taking the direction and the number of Shannon’s room before leading the two of them away. He grabbed several tools and scanners on their way before ushering Julian inside.

“Would you wish I keep the door open?” Parmak asked as Julian crossed to the bed.

“No, that’s—that’s okay,” Julian said, touched that he’d asked. “The privacy is good.”

Parmak nodded and joined Julian at the bed, scanner out and already chirping away at Julian’s shoulder. He murmured some things to himself in Kardasi and Julian shuddered. “Apologies,” Parmak said in Standard. “J—Dr. Bashir, may I ask you to remove your shirt? This will be much easier if I can see the way the muscles are catching within the socket.”

Julian’s jaw tightened and Parmak waited. With a sharp exhale, Julian pulled his shirt up and over his head, his hand still fisted in it on the bed. 

“Thank you,” Parmak said, keeping his voice level, refusing to waver at the first sight of the burn marks and scars since they had undressed Julian three octals before. “May I touch you?”

Julian swallowed and nodded and Parmak laid light fingers on Julian’s bicep, pushing down the anger at the instant tension, speaking soothing nothings while he rotated the shoulder, swiped regenerators over it, healed one layer at a time. After nearly half an hour, Parmak pronounced Julian’s shoulder back at full capacity and suggested a sling for the rest of the day. Both of them were surprised when Julian agreed, and Parmak disappeared briefly to return with the contraption. He helped Julian put his shirt back on before gently pulling the sling over Julian’s head and sliding Julian’s arm inside.

“Any chance I can work on that forearm bone?” Parmak asked, gathering his tools.

Julian shook his head. “Not the scars, either,” he said, his voice strained.

“Thank you, Julian. Thank you for letting me heal this much.”

Julian nodded in short jerks, resting his free hand on the healed shoulder. “I—I hadn’t realized how much pain I was in,” he said softly. “And if Shannon could go through that, well.” He looked up, catching Parmak’s gaze. “Maybe by the time she’s ready for the other eye, I can be the one to do it,” he said, and Parmak refused to hear the doubt in the statement.

“I would be glad to watch you work once more,” he said instead. He wanted so badly to reach out and hug the human, to kiss the newly-healed shoulder, to celebrate with him the medical mind that continually impressed and delighted Parmak. “Well, shall we go check on our patient, Doctor?” he said instead, and refused to sigh when Julian nodded and slid off the bed himself, giving Dr. Parmak the Cardassian a wide berth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Travels with Charley" is one of two John Steinbeck books I've read that didn't feel like a slow death by papercuts, and I actually recommend it if you're into travel memoirs. I think Julian would love it because it’s rambly and exploratory, and Garak would secretly love it because it’s just tons of people observations. He would, of course, deny that a dog is a fit companion and that anything a 20th century human wrote was good, since it’s so superficial and selfish to go on a cross-country road trip for no reason whatsoever.


	18. Chapter 18

It felt so familiar as Garak arrived at the hospital to see Julian asleep in a chair next to Shannon’s bed and speak to Parmak about the prognosis. It felt so familiar, and yet Parmak needed Garak to see how different it was.

"You should have seen him, Elim,” Parmak said, missing the slight wince at the familiar name here in the hall outside Shannon’s room. “He was in his element, perfectly focused on her needs, clear as a viewscreen in what he needed and what was needed next. He even spoke Kardasi with me several times.”

“Did he, now?” Garak said, moderating his surprise. 

“I could tell it wasn’t entirely comfortable, but he knew I didn’t have the words in Standard and he wasn’t going to risk us not being able to communicate. He was back, Elim; still wounded, still shy, but back.”

“Mmm,” hummed Garak in noncommittal response. “And now it is time for us to leave them again, I take it?”

“Both of them are pretty exhausted,” Parmak confirmed. “Shannon is no longer sedated but is sleeping it off; Julian is free to move about as he likes. He made it quite clear that he would not leave before she wakes. Apparently he’s promised her she would wake to a human face.”

Garak nodded automatically. “Considering the extremity of our physiological differences, that might be wise. To someone who has only seen Trill and humans for years, a Cardassian’s is a pretty alien countenance.”

Parmak agreed. “But I know you want to check on them first.”

Glancing at him gratefully, Garak tilted his head and quietly eased his way into the room. Shannon lay much like he remembered her, connected to various monitors and wires, her dark skin seeming almost sable against the white mass of bandages around her head. Her short and kinked hair jagged across the pillow and Garak remembered, briefly, Kelas tying it back with his own band.

Julian, long legs splayed out in front of him, was sprawled in a chair at her bedside, one arm in a dark grey sling. Garak started; Parmak had said nothing about Julian injuring himself during the procedure. He quickly checked for any other injuries and saw none; saw, even, that Julian’s face was more relaxed than he’d seen it in some time. Garak hated the realization that he had, at some point, become accustomed to the tense lines of pain in the young face.

Under his scrutiny, Julian stretched, the hazel eyes fluttering open. Garak hung back, not wanting to be Julian’s first sight. The man rolled his head, stretching his neck, resetting the sling, and leaned forward to check on Shannon and the various data across the screens around her.

Garak cleared his throat. “Julian.”

As he’d expected, Julian jumped in his seat, turning abruptly and catching his elbow against the chair. He and Garak both winced and Garak held out his hands.

“I’m sorry to startle you,” Garak said. “Are you injured?”

Julian looked down at the sling, seeming embarrassed. “Um, no,” he said. “Parmak—Kelas fixed my shoulder. He told me to wear the sling for a while so I don’t overuse it.”

“And then I cause you to bang it into your seat,” Garak said. “My apologies.”

Julian chuckled softly. “You always were able to sneak up on me,” he said. “I’ve never quite worked out how a man as sturdily built as you could move so quietly.”

Garak stepped forward, adopting an affronted air. “Are you casting aspersions on my figure, Doctor?”

Julian’s mouth quirked. “I didn’t call you fat, Garak, only sturdy.”

“Well, as long as we’re both clear about our insults.”

“It’s a lovely figure, Garak, as well you know, and I wouldn’t have slept with you if I didn’t like sturdy.” Both of them were surprised by the allusion and Julian’s eyes clouded as he fought his mind. The silence stretched until Julian’s voice broke through, strangled and tense. “Garak, please—”

Garak stepped forward, waiting for the request itself. Rather than speaking it, Julian reached out with his free hand. Automatically, Garak grasped it, and Julian pulled hard enough that Garak had to kneel beside him. Julian’s augmented strength had never worried Garak, but the intensity of it now was unexpected as Julian gripped Garak’s hand like a lifeline. Julian tilted his head forward and leaned into Garak’s _ChUfa_. Garak stifled his gasp, bringing up his other hand to cover Julian’s.

“When I was in the operating theater with Kelas,” Julian whispered into the small space between them, “it felt—it felt like I was _right_. It felt like I belonged, and I could think about how everything was connected, and I could _see_ the procedure in my mind, and I thought about how beautiful Kelas is when he’s focused, and what it was like before—before, and I missed you _so much_ and the only thing I wanted was to kiss you—and then…” His voice shook, and Garak opened the eyes he didn’t realize he had closed to see Julian’s held tightly shut, tears tracking down the high cheekbones. Silencing his own alarm bells, Garak reached up and cupped Julian’s face, his thumb wiping at the tear tracks. Julian began to cry harder, pushing his jaw into Garak’s hand.

“And then?” Garak whispered.

“All that I could hear was that I was _wrong_ ,” Julian replied, opening his eyes as they flitted back and forth between Garak’s. “I was wrong to be treating her, I was wrong to say _I_ wasn’t the one who needed treatment, I was wrong to think Kelas was beautiful, I was wrong to want you, I was wrong to be there pretending to be well enough to be a doctor in a room full of aliens like it was _okay_. I—I almost left right then.”

“What kept you?”

“I couldn’t do that to Shannon.”

Garak smiled. “Ever the doctor,” he said fondly.

“I thought they had taken that, too,” Julian said, his voice small as his eyes dropped to their still-connected hands.

“Your compassion is who you are, Julian,” Garak said, brushing his thumb again against the smooth human skin. “It was who you were as Jules, it was who you were as a lieutenant, it is who you are right now, it will be who you become when we are all old and, in your case, finally grey.”

Julian laughed in a half-sob, squeezing Garak’s hand. “But I am broken,” he said.

Garak took a deep breath in, let it out, and slid his hand under Julian’s chin to tilt the man’s face so that their eyes met once more. “You are beautiful, Julian Bashir,” he said, and the pain, the fear, the _hope_ in Julian’s eyes burned through him like a phaser bolt. “You have always been the best humanity has to offer—which I say very much as an alien, an alien who fell in love with the entirety of you despite all of my best intentions.”

Julian swallowed, clearly steeling himself for something, and leaned forward, barely brushing his lips against Garak’s. A shock went through them both and Garak just barely stopped himself from surging against Julian, from devouring the human he wanted so much.

“I wish I could want the entirety of you,” Julian breathed against Garak’s mouth, “but I know what they will do to us.” He kissed Garak, feather-light, once more, and then pulled back, pulled into himself, curled into the chair and looked at nothing but Shannon, and Garak felt the dismissal like a Klingon’s right cross as he levered himself back up and left the room.

***

After three days, the humans returned to the house. Julian took no one’s hand this time to get out of the skimmer; Shannon, with the sight blurred but returning in her one eye, leaned on Garak so as not to stumble in her lopsided delight at seeing Prime for the first time. All was still colors and shapes to her but Garak dutifully answered every question about the buildings, the trees, the skimmer, the rocks in the memorial. Neither Garak nor Parmak commented on Julian’s polite withdrawal, his presence with the two Cardassians marked by a wall to rival Garak’s genial distance with strangers. The humans returned to their makeshift bedroom and the Cardassians to their shared bed, and the four of them fell back into the motions of living together. The household seemed to be holding its breath, waiting—waiting for the call they had decided to have the following day.

“Will I be able to see him by tomorrow?” Shannon asked Julian and Kelas both, and neither had an answer for her, and the four continued to wait, falling into sleep because it was the next thing to do, the deepening chill of the advancing season curling around the house as though it, too, was unsure of how to pass the time.

***

“Good morning, _ss’lei_ ,” Kelas said when he opened his eyes and found Garak perched on the end of the bed. Kelas sat up, the covers falling away from his chest, and he shuddered. “Are you not cold?”

Garak shrugged and Kelas reached for him. “You’re _freezing_!” Kelas said in alarm. “Elim, come back to bed—you need to warm up, how long have you been sitting there in naught but your pajamas?”

“Long enough,” Garak replied, letting Kelas pull him back and tuck him under the covers, entwining his own body around Garak’s chilled one.

Kelas shivered as he held onto Garak, missing their warm human more than ever. “What were you pondering?”

“Whether it was wise to ask off of work today.”

“You said that they didn’t mind the extra time?”

“No,” said Garak, capturing one of Kelas’ hands in his and brushing it across his lips, “they have fortunately been very understanding. It seems that the Parallel Organization has crossed paths with some of the other ministers before; they are most supportive in our efforts to rehabilitate some of its victims.”

Kelas lifted himself onto his elbow, his long hair flowing in a curtain over the pair of them. “Crossed paths before? When? How?”

Garak shook his head. “You know there are a great many things I cannot lay bare to you, Kelas.”

Kelas sighed, letting his head drop onto Garak’s shoulder. “I know. It is interesting to know that much, even.” He felt Garak’s hum of agreement under his jaw. “So if it is not the time needed, what is it?”

The pause stretched, its silences popping between them. “I do not know whether I will be of much use,” Garak said at last.

Kelas traced Garak’s _C_ _hUla_ beneath his pajama top with one light finger. “She trusts you, Elim.”

“As much as she trusts any alien.”

“No.” Kelas raised himself to an elbow again. “She trusts _you_.”

“I keep telling people what a terrible idea that is.”

“Hush. You were her first real person here, and you have never made her feel unwelcome, and you have the advantage of not being a doctor who can hurt her.”

“I could hurt her in a thousand ways without even exerting myself.”

“Yes, but none of the ways she’s _expecting_ to be hurt, Elim. Don’t you see? You are entirely outside of what she fears—not a doctor like the ones who twisted her, not a lover like the one she was taught to reject, not even an obviously violent maniac like the caricature aliens they sold her. You are, simply, a man who walks with her through the gardens, and has ridges on his face.”

Garak watched him a moment before lifting a hand to tuck Kelas’ hair behind one ear, letting his fingertips drift down Kelas’ jaw ridge. “How can _you_ , my Kelas, say that I am not ‘obviously violent’?”

Kelas sighed, closing his eyes and leaning into the touch. “We are not talking about us, Elim. We are talking about you and Shannon. And you and Shannon have a much, much different history.” Without opening his eyes, Kelas continued, “And both you and I know that we are much more complicated than whether your violence was obvious or not.”

“Kelas—”

“Do not apologize to me right now, Elim Garak.”

Garak closed his mouth obediently and Kelas opened his eyes. “Shall we go be present for our adopted human, then?” Kelas asked.

Garak nodded, a question in his eyes to which Kelas assented as Garak pulled him close for a kiss, soft as the hair that drifted over their shoulders.

***

“I remember feeling distinct bumps and scales,” Shannon said as the four sat to a nervous breakfast, “but I can’t see them yet.”

“What can you see?” Kelas asked as he set down cups of tea.

“Much clearer shapes—and more defined colors. You, for example, aren’t only one shade,” she said, peering at Kelas.

“That I am not,” Kelas answered.

“Why?”

“Are you only one shade?” Kelas asked.

“Of course—I’m brown all the way down.” Shannon grinned and Julian snorted into his tea.

Kelas smiled but tapped her palm lightly. “Oh?” he said. “Then why are your hands lighter?”

“It’s a pigmentation thing,” she said. Kelas, confused, looked to Garak, who gave him the Kardasi equivalent.

“Ah!” said Kelas in understanding. “Yes. Well, it is also a ‘pigmentation thing’ with me.”

“Are there a lot of Cardassians like you?”

Kelas stilled, a plate in hand, at the question. “No,” he said, his voice suddenly soft. “There are not many of us.”

Shannon opened her mouth to continue but Garak jumped in instead. “Would you like to have the office to yourself when the call comes through, Shannon?” he asked mildly, not missing the way even Julian watched the tension recede from Kelas’ body as he turned back to the counters.

She turned her newly-focusing eye on him. “You know, now that you have semi-distinct facial features, I can see why Julian thinks you’re handsome. I mean, I can _see_ it now.” Her smile was genuine and full. “It is so overwhelming to see anything again, I can’t…I just…”

Julian reached over and squeezed her hand and she patted it gratefully. “And you!” she said to Julian. “You never told me what a fox you are.”

“Fox?” Kelas asked, coming to sit at the table.

“It’s an Earth animal, but it’s meant as a compliment on someone’s appearance,” Julian said, his head ducked shyly.

“It means Julian is a fine-looking man,” Shannon emphasized.

“Ah,” said Kelas. “Well, yes. We rather thought so.”

“You’ve got good taste!” Shannon laughed.

Julian cleared his throat. “Yes, well, thank you, Shannon, that’s—that’s kind of you.”

“Are you blushing?”

“I—I can’t blush, actually, wrong skin coloring for that—”

“But you would be!” Shannon positively crowed. “I can see enough to see that. Oh, Julian, I bet you have the most _expressive_ face, I can’t wait until I can see it fully.”

Had Julian been able to blush, he would have been positively crimson after that, and Garak took pity on him. “Is there anything you need before the call, Shannon?”

Shannon turned back to him, the difference between her eyes somehow more pronounced as the playfulness left them. “I’m sure there are several complicated things that need to be done before such a call, over such a long distance—”

“Shannon,” interrupted Garak gently. “Do you still want to do this?”

She broke eye contact, pressing her lips together tightly. “I can’t very well call it off.”

“You can absolutely call it off!” said Julian in earnest. “There’s nothing binding you to this, nothing at all.”

"Oh, Julian,” Shannon said, looking up at him. “You can’t really believe that.”

Julian reached out and took her hand. “Shannon, we—we are not there, right? That means we get to make our own choices again. We—” His voice caught and he swallowed thickly. “We get to make our own choices.”

“But what if this is the wrong one?”

With no answer, Julian pulled her hand to his lips and kissed the back of it.

Garak stood, extending his own hand with a little bow. “Shannon, it is time. Wrong or right, will you make this choice?”

Shannon looked at the hand holding hers, at the hand outstretched and waiting, and then at Kelas.

Kelas smiled sadly. “It has to be you who decides,” he said.

She sighed, looking once more at the table, and the three men waited. After several deep breaths, she reached out with her free hand and took Garak’s, rising from the table, her jaw set. Garak bowed his head to her as he wrapped her arm in his and together, they headed to the comm unit.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One step forward, two steps back...  
> You will get to meet Miagu next chapter, I promise.  
> Also, Alexander Siddig (who played Julian) mentioned at one point that his particular shade of brown means he doesn't noticeably blush, but he does have this super bashful thing he does with his facial expression that I think is terrifically adorable and so I've borrowed that set-up for Julian.


	19. Chapter 19

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Grab a stuffed animal, this chapter is sad.

“Stay with me,” Shannon said to Garak as she sat in front of the comm. “Please?”

“As you like,” Garak said. “Will here be all right with you?” He sat on the corner of the bed, just out of view of the camera, still within reach. She nodded.

“I’ll just—”

“Julian, no, stay?”

“It’s going to get awfully crowded in here, Shannon.”

She ducked her head and Julian sighed at himself. “I didn’t mean I wouldn’t, Shannon, I’m sorry, I—”

“No, you’re right. But I—I don’t know how this is going to go. I don’t know—I don’t know how loud… _they_ are going to be.” She looked at him and he saw so much of his own pain, his own frustration, trapped in that single eye.

“Where would you like me to sit?” Julian asked.

“Here.” She patted the bed on the other side of the corner from Garak, decidedly in the frame of the comm unit.

“I will make sure there is more tea,” Kelas said.

“Dr. Parmak, I’m sorry—”

“Shannon,” Kelas said soothingly, “I am not offended at all. I will be in the kitchen, ready for whatever comes next.”

“Thank you,” she said, looking at all three of them. “Thank you, for being here.”

The comm chirped.

Shannon smoothed her shirt, tugged her hair, fidgeted, until Garak quietly called her name. “Okay then,” she said, pressing the receiving button.

Julian was not sure what he had thought Miagu Tir _would_ look like, but this man surprised him. He seemed to be all boxes—a squared jaw, a squared head, squared shoulders that almost looked like they had corners. Julian found himself automatically counting the Trill spots but realized they were not the reddish brown of either Jadzia or Ezri—these were light, almost tan, startling against the deep brown of Tir’s skin that was darker even than Shannon’s.

“Your eyes are still green,” Shannon said in a voice of wonder, laying her fingertips on the screen. “God, I’d forgotten how green they are.”

“Shannon, is that really you?” Tir said, those moss-green eyes wide in alarm. “Oh, Shannon, what did they do to you?”

Shannon shook her head. “It’s really me,” she said.

“How?” asked Tir. “I mean—I never stopped hoping, but after Akira told me you were gone I could never be sure—”

“What did Akira tell you?” Shannon’s body was rigid and Julian and Garak both sat up straighter.

“She said—she said that your ship had been attacked on its way to her, when you went to visit her family. She said there was nothing left. You—you died, she said.” Tir reached forward as if to touch Shannon so far away. “But I never—”

“She said I _died_?” Shannon hissed. 

“I never believed her, not really,” Tir said. “But oh, Shannon, it is so good to see you, to _know_ that you’re alive.”

Shannon gripped the edges of the console. “She was right.”

“What?”

She looked up, her still-blinded eye searching for what it could not see. “I died. I was killed, rather, at that place. And you should have let yourself move on.”

“Shannon, what are you saying?” Tir’s face was creased with alarm and worry.

“You need to move on, Miagu. You need to forget me.” On the bed next to her, Julian shifted. The movement caught Tir’s eye.

“Ah,” he said, looking at Julian. “As you have?”

“What?” Shannon turned, saw Julian behind her, saw Tir looking at him with pain in deep green. “Oh, that’s—” She cut herself off. “Yes. Yes, as I have.”

“What? No!” said Julian. “Mr. Tir, my name is Julian, Julian Bashir, Shannon and I—”

“Are together now,” Shannon cut in. “So you’re free, Tir.”

“We are not!” Julian insisted. “Shannon, what are you doing?”

“What _are_ you doing, Shannon?” Tir asked. “Why would you contact me after all this time just to have someone insist he is not with you?”

“He’s afraid of you, Tir, that’s all.”

“I am not afraid of him!”

“We met at the Center, we fell in love. I’m sorry, Tir, but you and I are over.”

“Shannon, stop it! Tir, we are _not_ together! Yes, we met at the Center, but we were both patients, I’m _married_ —”

“So was I,” Tir cut in. “I thought so, at least.” Unimaginable sadness tracked over his face. “I still love you, Shannon Dalili. You must know that.”

“Take care of yourself, Tir,” said Shannon in a distant voice. “I wish you all the best.” She cut the connection.

“What the _fuck_ did you just do?” Julian yelled.

“She saved him,” said Garak.

“What? _Now_ you’re saying something? Fine silence you were having before that when she was lying flat-out.”

Garak didn’t reply, looking steadily at Shannon. “Didn’t you?”

The first tears began to spill from Shannon’s eyes and she nodded, her hands coming up to her lips as the tears fell faster and she began to rock. “If I go back, she will only try again, and there will always be more,” Shannon whispered.

“Your sister, Akira.”

Shannon nodded.

Julian sat back down. “Would someone explain what is happening?” he said tiredly.

“Your parents are the ones who had you kidnapped for the Parallel Organization,” said Garak. Julian flinched but nodded. “Shannon’s sister did so for her. Your parents never made any pretense of lying about you to Kelas and I, but her sister tried to get her husband to move on by informing him she was dead. If she turns up _not_ dead and, in fact, reunited with her husband, perhaps her sister will try again and this time, the threat may encompass more than just Shannon. Have I got it right?” Garak said, his tone bizarrely polite.

Shannon nodded again, rocking back and forth as silent sobs shook her shoulders.

Julian looked at Garak, looked at Shannon, looked at Garak. He knelt in front of Shannon. “You think there are more of them, too?” he said quietly.

She raised her face from her hands, studying him, and nodded a third time.

“Oh, Shannon,” he said, enfolding her into his arms, and she wept against his shoulder with her mismatched eyes and her broken heart and he ran a hand soothingly over her back, letting her cry for both of them as he did not try to tell her the fear was not real.

***

"That was quick,” Kelas said as Garak entered the kitchen and sat at the table. Garak didn’t respond, didn’t look at him. “Elim? Elim, what happened? Is Shannon okay?”

Garak sighed so deeply Kelas wondered he wasn’t light-headed from it. 

“Elim?”

“She rejected him.”

“What? I thought she wanted to see him! She even went through the operation!”

“That’s just it, Kelas.” Garak turned those ice-blue eyes on him, anger and sadness and understanding chasing themselves in the depths. “She loves him still, and she is pushing him away.”

“Like you fear Julian will,” Kelas said, sitting at the chair next to Garak.

“Like Julian is already trying.”

“They are not the same, Elim.”

Garak took Kelas’ hand in his own, absently rubbing a thumb over the edges of the white amidst the grey. “Why didn’t you run away from the camp, Kelas?”

Kelas’ hand tightened in Garak’s. “Elim, what—”

“Why didn’t you run?”

“There was nowhere to go.”

“That wasn’t it.”

“Then what was it?” Kelas said tersely, pulling his hand away. “Why are you bringing this up?”

“When you first went—when _I_ sent you there, at the beginning, why didn’t you run?” Garak looked him in the eye and Kelas quickly looked down, folding his hands together, trying not to squirm.

“Because I knew the Order—I knew _you_ would catch me again,” Kelas finally said, his voice small.

“And that is what they fear, Kelas. This reaction is what they are feeling, and why Shannon pushed Tir away, and why Julian will do the same to us.”

Kelas stood abruptly, going to lean on the sink.

“I am sorry, Kelas, to push on that wound, but I need both of us to know what the stakes are.”

“And you didn’t know of any other way to illustrate that then by torturing me again?”

Garak watched his husband’s back coil, his shoulder ridges tense and unfold, watched the many ways he tried to soothe himself from the memory. The word crouched between them and Garak told himself that it was good that it hurt this badly, the act of causing pain; it was right that he should see what he had brought into reality.

“Are they still together?” Kelas asked, his back still turned.

“Julian and Shannon? In the office, yes.”

“Best to leave them there a moment.”

“Indeed.”

The silence stretched between them, taut and sharp.

“Damn it, Garak, why do you do that sometimes?”

“It is the most direct illustration possible.”

“It is also a hell of a thing to relive, do you even know that?”

Garak closed his eyes. “Yes.”

Parmak turned back to Garak, his arms held tightly around his body. “I know you like causing yourself pain, but by the gods, I wish you would stop hurting me alongside you.”

Excuses, retractions, and apologies leapt to Garak’s tongue and he swallowed them all. “I know, Dr. Parmak. It was overzealous of me to illustrate their situation by exploiting yours; I am sorry.”

A shudder ran through Kelas’ body and he flexed his hands, stretching them on the counter edge. “We can’t keep doing this, Garak.”

Garak quelled the spike of alarm within him, made his voice smooth and placid. “Doing what?”

“Licking each other with _plaktar_ tongues because his pain hurts us.”

Some of the alarm quieted. “Oh?”

“Garak— _Elim_.” Kelas stepped forward, tensed, breathed, came and sat in the chair once more. “We have long since fought this battle between us, but it is never going to go away. Watching his pain and feeling his uncertainty is only bringing it up—for both of us. I’ve been…talking about it with him, for other reasons.” Kelas looked at his folded hands in front of him. “But we have to stop. We can’t all three of us be hurting if we’re going to make it through this.”

“ _Are_ we going to make it through this?” Garak almost whispered.

Kelas looked up, forced himself to look at the blue eyes, and saw that they were no longer ice but melted pools as the uncertainty gathered. “It is I who doubt in the day,” Kelas said, taking a deep breath before reaching out and wiping the one escaped tear away from Garak’s face.

Garak reached up in a flash, grabbing Kelas’ wrist and turning his palm to his mouth, kissing the lines of his scales, winding his fingers through Kelas’ and folding their hands together tightly, pressing them against his temple. “How can I make him see there is nothing to fear when being afraid is the only thing I know how to make people do?” he said, his voice twisted and torn.

Kelas swallowed, memory after memory sliding from his hand up through his mind—the way Garak had left the interrogation room as he sobbed in the chair, the first time Elim had kissed him, the coldness of the hall in the Obsidian Order’s basement as Garak’s voice told the guards to take him away, the moment Elim proposed enjoinment, the hatred of Elim Garak, the love of Elim Garak. “Not the only thing,” he said.

Garak kissed his palm again, his breath warm against the flesh. He took a deep, trembling breath. “What did I ever do to deserve you,” he murmured.

Kelas closed his fingers, pulling Garak’s hand and his focus up to him. “Nothing,” he said. “We are not together out of merit, Elim Garak, and you will do well to remember that. I am with you because, against all reason, I fell in love with you. At another time, perhaps, I can remind you of all the qualities of yours that would cause such madness because there are quite a few, but right now I have several variations of you in my mind and not all of them are the ones I like. But all of them are the man I married, of my own free will. And that man in there,” he gestured with his other hand out toward the office, “has also done nothing to deserve the pain and suffering he’s been through, nor is he with us because we particularly deserve him. But he fell in love and crossed half the quadrant to be here, once, and it is our job now to remind him of why he did that and then ask him to make the choice based on who we are right now, not on what has happened or what might happen. It is not true that there is ‘nothing to fear,’ and I don’t think even you are arrogant enough to make that claim with any seriousness. But it _is_ true that nothing fearful is a match for the three of us, together, with the entirety of our selves. _That_ is what you make him see.”

Garak stared at him for a moment before turning the hand he held over and gently, reverently, kissing the splotched knuckles and then raising them to his own _C_ _hUfa_. “You are wiser than I will ever be, Kelas Parmak, and if I ever stop being grateful for that then I have become a fool indeed.”

Kelas pulled his hand back. “Remember that the next time you consider using my scars for your dramatic flair,” he said, his voice steady and stern.

Garak bowed his head in acknowledgement. “Are you ready to come with me to check on the humans?” he asked.

“Go ahead. I’ll be there in a moment.”

Garak stood and left the room and Kelas, beyond exhausted, let himself fall onto the table and shiver with the force of the unwanted memories.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Do you see now why this fic is taking so long? So much trauma in every single one of them.
> 
> A _plaktar_ is a Cardassian creature from the Ba'aten Peninsula rainforests that has a poisonous tongue, so "licking someone with a _plaktar's_ tongue" is a Cardassian idiom roughly similar to "dragging each other over the coals."
> 
> For the visual folks out there, we never get a black Trill on DS9 but the artist LateFines drew a beautiful imagining of it you can see [here](https://www.deviantart.com/latefines/art/Black-Trill-700032609).


	20. Chapter 20

The remainder of the day was stretched thin with the uncertainty of what was next, of who belonged where, of everything the four of them would not say. Eventually Julian and Shannon went to the backyard to simply walk, Kelas buried himself in catching up on medical journals, and Garak moved through the house doing whatever adjustments and checks he deemed necessary. Evening came slowly, the shadows dragging themselves in reluctant hitches across the city. The humans came back in when it was well and truly dark and Kelas thought to himself that it was a small miracle that Garak had not gone out and hauled them back in sooner.

“Your orchids are lovely,” Shannon said as they sat down to a strained dinner.

“Thank you,” said Garak.

“No, Garak,” she insisted, and he looked at her, actually _looked_ at her. “They are _beautiful_. Your whole garden is beautiful; it is—it is so colorful, and vibrant, and such a startling thing in the greys and browns of this world, and I can’t see the fine details of any of your plants but I can tell that that place is one of so much love.”

Garak slid his eyes to Kelas. “It is indeed, Shannon.”

“You are a very good gardener.”

Garak smiled sadly. “I have found I am good at a great many things,” he said.

“I told her the orchids are your favorite,” Julian said. “I remember you were so thrilled when you managed to get some to actually take root and grow.”

“It was a good day,” Kelas said to his plate. “There was not much growing on Cardassia at that time.”

“What was it like?” asked Shannon. “The Dominion attack?”

The Cardassians looked at each other. “It—it was difficult,” said Garak, his voice quiet.

“I remember hearing about it on the Federation channels,” said Shannon. “The number of people killed—it was just unfathomable.”

“Yes,” Kelas murmured, “it was.”

“I—I’m glad you both survived.”

Garak turned to her, appraisingly. “Are you?”

“I am.”

“Why?”

Shannon looked confused. “You—you have been very kind to me. And you are good for Julian.”

Julian opened his mouth but Garak cut over him, “Even though we are aliens?”

“That’s not fair,” Julian said. Garak ignored him.

“Even though,” Shannon said in a hesitant voice.

"A fine friendship where you let your friend be seduced by aliens.”

“Elim,” Kelas warned.

“What do you mean?” asked Shannon. “I’m not—that’s not—”

“Aliens are not good enough for you, but they’re fine for Julian.”

“That is not what I meant!” exclaimed Shannon as Julian snapped, “Stop it, Garak, that’s not it at all!”

"Isn’t it? I imagine Tir must disagree.”

“That’s enough!” said Kelas, slapping the table. All three fell silent. “We are all aware that this morning did not go well in any way and we have had a very, very long day trying not to acknowledge that. But there is no reason for you to punish her for it, Garak, or Julian. What’s done is done.”

Shannon excused herself from the table and Julian followed with a glare at Garak.

“What in the names of the gods are you doing?” Kelas asked. “Do you _want_ to drive them away?”

“I want them to stop being afraid!”

“And insulting them is definitely going to help.”

“No, I—no,” sighed Garak. “But she can’t leave it like this.”

“She can’t? Or _he_ shouldn’t?”

“I actually am focused on her at the moment, Kelas.”

Kelas got up and started clearing the dishes.

“I should just bring him here anyway.”

Kelas turned quickly. “Don’t you dare, Elim, don’t you dare break her trust like that.”

“Why not? She owes him a rejection to his face, at least.”

“She owes him nothing whatsoever!” Kelas looked at the doorway and lowered his voice. “Bringing him here without her consent will only cause them both a whole new level of pain and she has been through enough. Why is this so important to you?”

“Because she still loves him, Kelas!” Garak hissed, standing abruptly. “Because she let an alien she only half trusted operate on her so she could see him; because she agreed to the call despite all the demons in her head; because she wanted to fight them, once, before they got the better of her. If she can’t keep fighting, I will.”

“Even without her permission?”

“Even without.”

“Garak, that is a dangerous game and you know it. Do not become so like Tain that you think you know better than anyone else.”

Kelas knew the moment he said it that it was too far, a realization confirmed by Garak’s step back that pushed the chair scraping across the floor, his whole body gone rigid. “Elim, I—”

“I appreciate the warning, Doctor,” Garak said, his voice icier than his eyes. “But now who speaks with a _plaktar_ ’s tongue?”

“I’m sorry, that was over the line.”

“A good reminder, however, as his training is always near to hand.”

“Damn it, Elim, I’m sorry, all right? I should never have invoked him; that was a low blow, and I know you fight him every damn day even harder than…” Kelas slumped into the chair in front of him, his head in his hands. “Gods, all of us have ghosts in our heads at this point.”

Garak remained standing, his hands clenching at his sides.

Julian entered the room and stopped. “I—I just came in to get some…what is going on?”

“We are fighting our own phantoms, Julian,” Kelas said, “and we are not doing well.”

“Is that what that mess was about, Garak?” Julian said.

Garak exhaled, long and slow. “No, Julian,” he said. “That was my fear entirely.”

“Your… _fear_?” Julian asked.

Garak turned to him. “My fear.”

"When have you ever been afraid of anything?”

Kelas began to laugh, softly, the chuckle growing into a rumble, into a cackle, into a long and sustained laugh, his eyes crinkled, his head thrown back. Garak couldn’t stop a smile that became a grin, his own body relaxing with amusement.

“What…is happening right now?” Julian asked in bewilderment.

“Julian, I thought you knew Elim Garak,” Kelas said, wheezing in between his words.

“I…thought I did, too?”

“Then you should know that there are few men more frightened in the entirety of Cardassia.”

“Kelas,” Garak admonished, “I’d hardly go _that_ far.”

"Wouldn’t you?” Kelas shot back, wiping tears from his eyes. “Because the thing is, Julian, Elim Garak is not afraid of much—it is a very few things, which is why it comes across as fearlessness.”

Garak shifted uncomfortably. “Kelas,” he cautioned.

Kelas raised his eyeridges at him. “Shall I stop, Elim? Shall I let him feel as though he is the only one who has ever felt the fear that a loved one will be taken away? That the bottom will drop out of the small corner of hope that he’s managed to build? That he might not be able to stop the evil that walks through the stars even in the daytime?”

Julian turned to Garak, a picture of uncertainty. “Is he right, Garak?”

“More often than I would like,” Garak said, looking at Kelas. “And certainly more often than I admit to him.”

“But that—but you…so this…these past months…”

“Were hell,” Garak said matter-of-factly. “You wanted me to teach you something different, hmm? Then let me teach you this that I learned a long, long time ago. Being afraid of something is not the same as being paralyzed by it, and the sooner you learn to separate the two, the better. Yes, I was afraid for you; I was terrified that I would never find you again, that Kelas and I would simply dance around the ghost of you for the rest of our lives. And I am afraid now.” He took a deep breath. “I am afraid every time I leave that you will not be here when I return, and I can never decide whether I am more afraid that it will be because you were forced or because you chose to leave.”

Julian gaped. “Is that—are you telling the truth?”

“You know, I actually do that far more often than people give me credit for.”

“They’re still getting used to the shock, I expect,” said Kelas.

"Then how do you leave, if you’re so afraid?”

Garak looked at Julian and the ferocity in his eyes made Julian step back. “Because I accept that I cannot tie you to me at every moment—I accepted that a long time ago, actually, because it is your cursed and foolhardy independence that made me love you in the first place—but I also know that I have found you once and I will find you again, no matter what I have to do in the process.”

“Be careful, Garak,” Julian said quietly. “Being willing to do anything is exactly how you get people like them in the first place.”

“Then we will be evenly matched,” Garak said with a smile that was all teeth and absolutely no humor.

Julian shivered. “Don’t, Elim,” he said quietly. “Don’t be like them. Please.”

“He will not, Julian,” said Kelas, rising. “After all, he has me. And you, I believe.”

“I’m not enough,” Julian said, scuffing the floor with his head down.

“No,” agreed Kelas, and Garak stared at him. “Because at the end of the day, you could never be enough to change someone else—that is his job, not yours. You are enough to help; you are always enough to help. And did I not say I am part of this, too? I am not enough on my own. It is all three of us, together.”

“Like the vows?”

“Like the vows.”

Julian nodded at the floor. “But it’s not enough for Shannon.”

Garak and Kelas exchanged a glance. “As you’ve said, Julian, Shannon was at the Center longer,” Kelas said tentatively. 

“But if she can’t even talk to him…”

“Julian,” said Garak, “you’ve been _living_ with us. The situations are hardly similar.”

“But I’m still—I still can’t touch you—”

“You _kissed_ me, as a matter of fact. Twice,” said Garak. Kelas’ jaw dropped. “My apologies, dear, did I not mention that?”

“You most certainly did not,” Kelas said.

“Well. It was after Shannon’s surgery and you both were rather weary.”

“The secrets you keep, Elim,” said Kelas, his eyes dancing with what Garak recognized as hope.

“What if it was a one-time thing?” asked Julian, his voice thin.

Garak sighed. “We keep treading the same ground, Julian. Both of us are delighted you are here. We are not delighted when you are not here. However ‘here’ looks is entirely up to you, but the basic delighted/not delighted pairing is affected by your presence, not your ability to snag us silly.”

Julian burst out laughing. “It’s ‘snog,’ Garak, you ‘snog’ someone.”

“And here I thought I was finally getting a handle on your Standard idioms.”

The laughter passed and Julian looked thoughtfully at Garak. “You still want to bring him here, don’t you?”

Kelas raised his eyeridges and Garak studiously ignored him. “I do.”

"It will destroy Shannon’s trust in you.”

“Some things are worth sacrificing for the higher purpose.”

Julian opened his mouth as if to offer a rebuttal but closed it. “So you’re going to do it no matter what anyone else says?”

Garak looked sharply at him. "It is not--" began Garak.

Julian cut over him. “Where else will she go, if she doesn’t go with him and won’t stay here?”

Pausing, Garak considered this. She certainly couldn’t go home to her family, and as he thought through his various acquaintances and networks, he realized he actually didn’t know that many humans anymore—leaving the station had let most of his Federation connections fade away. Except—“What about your friend the chief?”

“Miles?” Julian said in surprise. “I mean—sure, I guess. He and I haven’t talked in…probably almost a year now, actually. And he doesn’t…I mean, he may not know…”

“Ah,” said Kelas, “he does, as a matter of fact. When Elim and I were looking for you, we called in quite a few connections.”

“You asked him? Oh, God, does he know I’m back?”

“Yes,” soothed Garak, “we sent him a message shortly after you were released from the hospital.”

“Then…then why hasn’t he called to check in?”

Garak blinked at him. “We told him not to.”

“Why would you do that?” Julian cried.

“It was not out of malice,” Kelas said. “We wanted to let you settle on your own terms.”

“My own terms?” said Julian, pulling back slightly. “So when were you going to tell me that you’d banned my best friend from talking to me?”

Garak felt the conversation tilting away from them again, the strain that was always underneath pulling harder, tightening. “We did not ‘ban’ him, Julian, and we were not keeping him a secret.”

“No, just deciding what I needed to know and when I needed to know it, just like with Shannon. Because you know so much better what we need, even without ever asking us.”

“Julian—”

“No, you know what? I’m going to go call Miles, and I’m not going to think about how I seem to have gone from one place where everybody thought they knew what was best for me into yet another.” He closed his mouth around the next words and pain lanced across his face; all three of them heard the phrase he could not say as it ricocheted in silence between them.

“Julian,” pleaded Garak, “Julian, we would never—”

“Don’t, Garak. Please, don’t. I used to love your lies, I really did, because they were puzzles and they were adventures and they were invitations, but I have spent six months being lied to so much that I don’t even know if my own voice is true anymore and I…I can’t do secrets anymore, I can’t. We have had enough of the hidden things that hurt us; please, stop adding to that.”

Both Kelas and Garak were silent as Julian wrapped his arms around himself and left, whatever it was he had come to retrieve utterly forgotten.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some roads are paved with good intentions.
> 
> Also, merry we-survived-January, I'm going to switch to uploading a new chapter twice a week. Sundays and Wednesdays are now Angst Days of Angstiness. So much drama in this quartet.


	21. Chapter 21

The four of them slid into something that looked rhythmic, cordial, and placating. After a few days, Kelas went back to work at the hospital, taking on half days to get away from the façade of their home. Garak buried himself in the tasks of the ministry, wresting Cardassia into wholeness while the humans continued in their frozen hurt. Shannon and Julian drifted, one octal turning into two, into three, the autumn sliding into winter with a chill that was far more than the wind.

Until they were seated at one of their tense dinners that held laughter on the surface and grief below, ice on a fragile balloon, and a small alert went off.

“Proximity alarm,” Julian said to Shannon as she looked to him, her one rich brown eye now sharp and clear in contrast with the clouded grey of the other. “Garak has them set up all around the house.”

“Why don’t you just have a doorbell like normal people?” she asked.

“Because Garak is decidedly not normal,” Julian said as Garak stood to examine who was on the grounds.

“Oh,” he said softly.

“Elim?” said Kelas, coming up behind him. “Is everything all right?”

“Shannon?” called Garak. “You—well, you are going to want to come here.”

Shannon and Julian exchanged glances over the table as they rose together. The knock on the door was tentative but clear, three sharp raps.

“Take a deep breath,” said Garak to Shannon, and she eyed him suspiciously as he opened the door.

Miagu Tir stood on the doorstep, his peach spots and mahogany skin stark against the browns of Cardassia behind him.

***

“How dare you, Elim Garak,” Shannon said after having slammed the door. Kelas had left to explain the gesture, standing outside with Tir as Shannon raged with an equally indignant Julian behind her. “I told you to leave it alone, I told you it was safer for us—you said you _understood_ , even, and I didn’t have to explain it to you, but you brought him here _anyway_? How _could_ you?”

Garak spread his hands in supplication. “He thought you were dead, Shannon. At least let him see that you are okay before you send him away.”

“Do I look _okay_ to you, Garak?” she spat.

“You look alive, which is more than he knew a month ago.”

“And it was better for him not to know it. God, Garak, I thought you of all people—but aliens, you stick together, don’t you?”

Garak took a deep breath, letting the words slide off. “At least have a conversation with him, Shannon. A proper good-bye.”

“Don’t you dare tell me I owe it to him.”

“No,” agreed Garak, “but you may owe it to yourself. You love him still, Shannon; you told me that, several times, and you would not have pretended a relationship with Julian if you didn’t love him.”

“Don’t bring me into this,” said Julian hotly. “I know you thought you had every right, Garak, but I thought Kelas had finally talked you out of this madness. I _told_ you it wouldn’t do anyone any favors.”

“You knew?” said Shannon, whirling on him. “You knew he was going to go behind my back?”

“I didn’t,” replied Julian hastily, holding his hands up. “I mean, I knew he was thinking about it, but I didn’t think he’d be fool enough to go through with it, especially after both Kelas and I told him not to.”

“Garak only listens to himself, though, I guess.” Shannon squared her shoulders and took in a deep breath. “Well, I guess I’ll go fix this mess, then. I’ll tell him to go, and then I’ll find some place to stay because I am not living another night with _him_.” She pointed at Garak, disgust marring her features more than the scars around her eye.

Garak nodded to her. “I will help you find a place, if you feel it necessary.”

“You will help me do nothing, Garak,” she said, and the hurt was clear under the fury. “I will figure this out, and I will know better than to trust smooth-tongued aliens in the future.” She left, slamming the door behind her.

“You idiot, Garak,” said Julian. “I told you this would happen if you went behind her back, I _told_ you, but you never listen when you think you know better, you—”

Kelas returned, closing the door behind him. “I cannot believe it.”

“I thought you talked him out of it, Kelas,” accused Julian. “I thought you understood how damaging this would be—”

“It wasn’t him, Julian.”

Julian stopped, confused. “What?”

“Elim didn’t invite him here. Tir came on his own.”

“…what?”

“He had a hell of a time finding us, Tir said. Well done, Elim, you’ve kept us off the map better than I realized. He got the hospital from Dax, got the house directions from the hospital; it took no small amount of diplomatic pull not only to get into Cardassian space but down to the planet and in communication with my colleagues.”

“It was a fool’s move,” Garak said. “He’ll have alerted every listening post from here to Vulcan about where Shannon is now.”

“You…you _didn’t_ bring him here?” asked Julian, still catching up.

“I did not.”

“But—but you let Shannon—you let _me_ just…heap abuses on you like that.”

“You were correct that I had considered bringing him here, several octals ago.”

“But you _didn’t._ ”

“No.”

Julian stared at him. “Elim Garak, what the hell game are you playing?”

Garak sighed. “If she is angry at me, Julian, then she doesn’t have the focus to be angry at Tir.”

“And you sized that up in the five seconds he was on the doorstep.”

“Somewhat longer than five seconds, but yes.”

Julian shook his head. “And sacrificed yourself so that she would talk to him.”

“If I remember correctly, you did the same for me when we were first discussing a conversation with Tir, Doctor.”

Julian half-smiled. “So I did.”

"He, no doubt, will tell her of his efforts, and so the blame will no longer be mine.”

“But you let him get his foot in the door.”

“Yes.”

Julian let out a slow whistle. “Damn, Garak, that mind of yours does more calculations even than mine sometimes.”

Garak tilted his head. “I doubt that, Doctor, but I appreciate the compliment.”

“I’m sorry for jumping to conclusions.”

“They were understandable conclusions.”

“But I was about to say some truly awful things to you based on incorrect information. I’m sorry.”

“Apology accepted.”

“I don’t even want to think about what he would have had to do to get through the current landing requirements,” Kelas said. “What are we going to do about the beacon he just put on Shannon being here?” 

Garak sighed. “I will make inquiries about his methods and see what I can close of the loopholes he just opened; I’ll have to talk to him, too, about who his contacts were. Since he is joined, it may not be as widespread as we think—as the commander often says, symbionts have lifetimes’ worth of connections, so the Tir symbiont may have been the reason Miagu the Trill could get here at all. But he will have to tell me that story. For now,” he said, looking out the window and just seeing the two humanoids walking through the memorial rocks, “we let them have whatever conversation they need.”

***

Although Kelas was sure he read some of the book in front of him, he had no idea what it had actually said. He was far too curious about how things were going between Shannon and her enjoined—and he wasn’t the only one. Julian, as well, kept sneaking looks out the window, though where the pair had gone was anyone’s guess. His expressive face was wildly filled with emotions—fear was obvious, as was anger, frustration, and, for the briefest of instants, hope.

Did he want Shannon and Tir to work as proof that he and his husbands could? Kelas shook himself, remembering Garak’s many reminders not to read too much of his own desires into another person’s situation.

“They’re coming back,” Julian finally said, and indeed they were—Kelas could see that they were not touching, but there was a kind of shyness in their body language that did not speak of anger. He followed Garak’s example and let the pair come to them.

Julian could not; he bounded from the couch and opened the door just as Tir was reaching for the handle. “Shannon, are you okay?” he asked.

Shannon stepped in and gave him a hug. “I’m okay, Julian,” she said, seeing the fear underneath the fear. She broke the embrace and turned to the room. She looked straight at Garak, who met her gaze unwaveringly. 

“It wasn’t you,” she said. “You didn’t bring him here.”

“I did not.”

“But you let me think you did.”

“I did.”

“Why?”

Garak tilted his head. “Would you have listened to him if you weren’t distracted by being angry with me?"

“You didn’t trust me to be able to make the decision for myself.”

“No,” said Garak, “it was not about trust.”

“Everything right now is about trust, Garak.” Shannon’s face was set and fierce, yet there was something brittle in it. “You were not honest with me.”

Garak sighed. “To be fair, Shannon, I am not honest with most people. It—it does not come naturally.”

“That’s not good enough.”

Tir entered further into the room and made as if to say something, but Julian lightly brushed his arm and shook his head. This was between Shannon and Garak, and no other.

Garak stood and spread his hands. “What would be good enough, now that it is done?”

“Do you really care? Or are you just looking for a project you can manipulate?”

Garak’s jaw tightened slightly, his blue eyes going flat. “I am not trying to manipulate you, Shannon. I have never meant to do so.”

Shannon ran a hand over her face, carefully avoiding the still-blinded eye. “Julian told me, you know. He told me you were…you had shadows behind you. He never told me what they were, but I was sometimes lucid enough to put the descriptions together; I was drugged out of my mind when you found me or I would never have agreed to go so willingly with you.”

Kelas held his breath at such an uncharitable—but not untrue—portrayal of Garak. To think that Julian needed to conjure the specter of Garak’s past in order to keep himself going spoke far more about how bad he’d understood the situation to be than Shannon could ever realize. Kelas swallowed against his own anger yet again.

“And when you did come with me?”

“I—I don’t remember much of that, but in the hospital…you weren’t scary. You were kind, and you listened to me, and you gave me space, and then you were there for every set-back and every step forward, and you never made me feel stupid or broken, and I didn’t know how you could have been the person Julian said would come for him. It didn’t seem to fit. But now? You move people around as you need, Garak, and that fits completely.”

“That’s not what I meant about him, Shannon,” said Julian, breaking his own commitment to staying out of it.

"Wasn’t it?” Shannon turned to him. “’He can bend people to him,’ you said; ‘he has a magnetic power like a snake, so you don’t even realize you’re in trouble until you’re half-swallowed.’”

Julian folded into himself. “That can be a good thing,” he mumbled.

“You told me that he broke a man simply by staring at him, once.”

Kelas let out a sound somewhere between a gasp and a huff and Garak glanced quickly at him.

“I didn’t—I wanted you to come for me, for us,” Julian said, almost pleading with Garak, his eyes darting to Kelas sitting on the couch with his hands kneading into the cushions as he breathed deeply. “I wanted to show that you were powerful enough to take on the Organization, that you could be fearsome in the right way to win against them.”

“And now I see that you were right,” Shannon said. “It’s magnetic, and like a snake you don’t realize when you’re being swallowed down.”

“Shannon, that’s not fair!” said Julian, but Garak waved to him.

“I manipulated what I understood to be the situation, not you,” Garak said levelly. “Would you rather I have told Tir to leave?”

“I would rather you have told me the truth.”

Garak chuckled softly, his face showing no humor at all. “Will I have another chance to do so?”

Shannon looked at him coolly, Tir hovering just behind her. “Not tonight. But Tir needs somewhere to stay. Do you have friends nearby who could put him up?”

Letting the implied reality that Tir could not stay with them slide by unspoken, Garak nodded. “Professor Tir, if you would come with me.” The pair disappeared into the study.

“’Professor’?” Julian asked.

“He’s a professor of astrophysics. Is Dr. Parmak all right?”

Julian crossed to Kelas and knelt. “Kelas,” he whispered, “Kelas, you’re here, not there. I’m here with you. May I—may I hold your hand?”

Kelas’ hand grasped Julian’s tightly as Kelas looked him in the eye. “Why, of all the stories?”

Julian prayed Shannon wouldn’t connect the dots; he turned to her and she ducked her head. “I’ll go make some tea,” she said, and left for the kitchen.

“It is the single, most powerful thing I know him to have done,” Julian said. “I’m sorry, but I needed that kind of powerful at that time. Both of us were high as kites, Kelas, I didn’t know what I was saying and I’m floored she remembered it.”

“You _wanted_ that—you wanted _that_ to come for you?”

“Kelas, if you had had knowledge of someone who could shut people down without saying a word, could topple governments with a few well-placed poisons and never let himself be caught in the aftermath, when you were at the camp, wouldn’t you have wished he were on your side?”

Kelas squeezed the hand in his, finding his way back to breathing steadily, in, out. “How could I have trusted he would be?” he said, his voice the barest whisper.

“Do you trust it now?”

Kelas looked up, searching Julian’s hazel eyes. “I believe in the night,” he said.

“Then how do you get through the day?” Julian asked, confused.

With a sigh, Kelas reached up and gently laid his palm against Julian’s cheek, the barest of touches, waiting. Julian tensed before exhaling, letting his head fall into Kelas’ hand, letting the scales scratch against his jaw. “By reminding myself the moons will rise again,” Kelas said, tears gathering in his eyes, “and that the light of the moons has shown me more changes in him than I could have ever dreamed possible. If Cardassia can rise again, so can we.”

Julian turned his head slightly and kissed the palm, a mere brush of lips, hearing Kelas’ sharp intake of breath. “Was it so wrong of me to want who I knew he once was when my whole world was what he once created?”

“ _Julian_ ,” Kelas sighed, sliding his hand into Julian’s hair, “it is never wrong to want safety when we are hurting.”

Julian let himself fall into Kelas’ embrace, his head resting on Kelas’ _ChUla_ as he knelt awkwardly between Kelas’ knees, letting the Cardassian hold him tightly and kiss the top of his head. He breathed in Kelas’ scent of soap and pumice stone and something almost like jasmine.

“I put the tea on—oh,” said Shannon from behind Julian, and he pulled away from Kelas. “I’m sorry,” she continued, the embarrassment clear in her voice. “I didn’t realize—”

“It’s okay, Shannon,” said Julian, wiping his eyes on his sleeve. “You weren’t interrupting anything scandalous.”

Kelas smiled at him.

“I have the tea on,” she said. “I’ll just—I’ll go back…”

“We’ll join you in a moment, Shannon,” said Kelas, not looking away from Julian. 

“I’m sorry I traded your story so lightly, Kelas,” Julian murmured.

“I am sorry you were trapped in a place so dark that that felt like light,” Kelas answered, and Julian leaned forward again, kissing him lightly at the top of his _ChUfa_. Kelas breathed in shakily at the intense intimacy of it.

“If you can find light in the moons,” Julian breathed against his scales, “maybe I can?”

Kelas squeezed his hand in answer, in hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And now we have Tir! Don't worry, he does get lines soon.
> 
> I’ve decided Garak smells sharp, like pine, which can apparently lower anxiety (!), and Parmak like jasmine, which lifts depression. Do I have anything to back this up? I do not.


	22. Chapter 22

It was a colleague from the hospital who ended up taking on Tir as a sudden houseguest, and Garak and Kelas went with him to give the humans space to talk. 

“Are you going to leave tonight, too?” Julian asked Shannon as they curled up on opposite ends of the couch.

“Where would I go?” she asked.

“You said you couldn’t stay here with Garak.”

Shannon sighed. “That was when I thought he had brought Tir here.”

“And now that you think he was manipulating you about the whole thing?”

“How do you do it, Julian?”

Julian pulled his long legs to his chest, hugging them close. “Do what?”

“Be with him. Love him, when you know what he is.”

Julian chuckled. “I have no idea what he is, Shannon. I barely even know what he _was_ because every day I find out something that changes the story.”

“But he’s a liar.”

“Yes,” Julian said softly, “he is very much that.”

“So how do you love him?”

“Oh, Shannon,” puffed Julian, “do you think either of us would be in this mess if we could choose who we love?”

“You can choose _not_ to stay with him.”

“I could,” said Julian, his voice considering. “I did, for a long time. I was in love with him for years before I did anything about it.”

“Did he know?”

“Gosh, no. We were both incredibly stupid about the whole thing, madly pining for each other but refusing the very idea that the other could ever _truly_ be interested. And then—and then there was the war, and…and both of us were liars, then, and suddenly I became a lot more preoccupied with how on earth _he_ could ever love _me._ ” Julian looked away, lost in the memory.

“But you’re married to him.” Shannon’s confusion ran like seams over her body.

“I am indeed,” agreed Julian. “Because the war ended and I was still in love with him, and then he took a leap of faith of being honest—well, honest for him—with me, and it was enough.”

“But the _lies_ —”

“Are true.”

“The lies?”

“My dear Shannon,” laughed Julian, “ _especially_ the lies.”

***

“He let me hold him, today,” Kelas told Garak as they returned from dropping off Tir, aliens among aliens to the humans they loved.

“I am glad of it,” returned Garak, twining his arm into his enjoined’s as they walked under the light of the moons. “Perhaps—perhaps we may yet survive this, too,” he said hesitantly.

Kelas looked up at the shimmering white in the night sky and leaned into Garak, sliding their hands together and holding tightly. "Perhaps you are starting to believe in the night, after all," he said softly, and he just caught a soft huff of laughter from the man on whose shoulder he leaned his head.

***

Garak was gone to work by the time Tir arrived the next morning, choosing to leave any further altercation with Shannon for the evening. Kelas told the hospital he would not be in; after assuring them they had not erred in giving out information to the insistent alien asking for the human Shannon, Kelas disconnected the call and headed for the kitchen just as the first proximity alarm went off.

“Have you plans for today, with Tir?” asked Julian over the remains of breakfast.

Shannon looked suddenly shy. “May we walk in the back garden, Dr. Parmak?”

“It is quite all right to simply call me ‘Parmak,’ Shannon,” he answered, wondering to himself why he still could not allow her to use his given name. “And yes, of course. Julian and I will be around the house; you only have to shout if you need us.”

There was a knock on the door and Shannon squirmed as Kelas rose to answer it.

“You’re _nervous_!” said Julian, barely stopping himself from laughing.

“We—we said we’d treat this like a first date,” whispered Shannon. “We’re starting over.”

“What gave you the courage?”

Shannon smiled at him and briefly took his hand in her own. “You, Julian.”

“Me?”

“If you can take it one day at a time with your husbands, I can, too. Besides, he did fight the whole of the Cardassian infrastructure for me. It’s only fair to hear him out.” She grinned, biting one lip charmingly, and left to greet her date.

Julian listened to the greeting, to Shannon’s shy acknowledgement and Tir’s low rumble of a voice. He got up and went to lean against the archway separating the kitchen from the living room.

“It is—it is good to see you again, Shannon,” Tir was saying. “I’m glad—I’m very grateful—it is good, to see you well.”

Shannon pulled at one of her sleeves. “Bit more battered,” she said quietly.

“But no less beautiful,” Tir answered, reaching out, catching himself, curling his hand back. Julian’s breath caught in recognition of the gesture, in the oddity that love could look similar across so many different races. _They don’t love like humans_ , slinked the mercury voice, _it’s not real. Only sick people want a half-love like that._

Julian rubbed his face in frustration. _It’s real if it compels people across half a galaxy for the one they love_ , he answered the voice. _It’s real if they want so badly to hold someone but don’t because they know it will only hurt._

_That’s love?_ laughed the voice. _You think that’s love? But when would you have learned better, you who are unlovable? No human wanted you—too stupid, too slow, too overeager, too arrogant, too naïve, too foolish. You’re barely human yourself, so of course you’d settle for aliens—and even they rejected you. You had to go to the lowest, the beaten, an exile and a dissident, because that level of deviancy fits you perfectly, doesn’t it?_

Shannon’s laugh splintered the voice and Julian gasped, grounding himself in the archway, in this house, on this planet. Shannon and Tir left together and Kelas came to Julian, his expression concerned.

“Julian?”

“Fighting,” said Julian tersely. He reached out. “Help.”

“Tell me what I can do,” said Kelas, taking Julian’s hand in his own.

“Ground me here.” Julian squeezed tightly, willing the voice of Michael to silence, shuddering against the shocks that were only in his mind now.

Kelas pulled Julian to himself, holding their hands against his _ChUla_ , enfolding the thin human into his embrace. Julian curled around him, burying his face in Kelas’ neck ridge. Kelas combed his free hand through Julian’s hair, murmuring soothing nothings into his ear. “I’m here, Julian,” he said, “I’m here. You are here, with me, on Prime, in our home, where you are loved, so loved, so very loved.” The two of them swayed slightly together as Julian shivered, breathing in Kelas’ jasmine scent. After a long, long while, Julian’s grip slackened, his breathing evening out.

“Better?” Kelas asked.

Julian nodded against his neck.

“Would you like to sit?”

Taking a deep breath, Julian pulled back, separating from Kelas but not letting go of his hand. They crossed to the couch and negotiated until Kelas was seated with Julian leaning against him, almost draped over him as Kelas wrapped his arms around Julian and rested his chin on the human’s shoulder.

“Thank you,” said Julian.

“Of course,” said Kelas. “Thank you for letting me in rather than handling it by yourself.”

“You were right.”

“Oh?”

“It’s disgust with myself. I mean, yes, it’s about you, or rather you as a Cardassian, an alien. But they taught me that I would only be attracted to something less than human if I were also less than human, a degenerate.”

Julian felt Kelas’ chest expand and contract beneath him in a deep sigh. “And do you believe it still?”

There was a long pause. “Yes,” Julian finally answered, his voice small.

Kelas’ arms tightened for a moment before relaxing. “Thank you for being honest.”

Julian shifted nervously.

“What brought this on so strongly today?”

“Seeing Tir react to Shannon. He loves her, clearly, and some of his love looks like—looks like how you love me, you and Garak, but you shouldn’t love me and I—I shouldn’t love you—” Julian’s breath hitched and Kelas found his hands, linked their fingers together.

“Stay with me, Julian,” Kelas whispered. “Breathe with me. In,” Julian felt the chest expand beneath him, “and out,” and Julian focused on his jerking body, breathing with Kelas beneath him, watching the _jaltim_ birds hop over the monuments. After a while, the two tense bodies relaxed, the breath matching and even. 

“Sorry,” Julian mumbled.

“You love me,” said Kelas, wonder in his voice.

Julian turned in Kelas’ arms to be able to look him in the eye. “What?”

Amazement sat bare in Kelas’ expression. “You said you shouldn’t love me, which means you _do_ love me.”

“Of course I love you,” said Julian. “That’s what got us all into this mess.”

“No, no,” said Kelas, shifting so that he was still holding Julian but more comfortably able to look at him. “Julian, don’t you see? You have been so worried that they took that from you, that they ‘burned it out’ of you. But you love me. It’s still there. Julian, it’s still there because it is part of you, a choice that you keep making despite their cruelty.” His eyes shone and Julian looked away, suddenly shy in the face of that admiration.

“I…I guess so.”

Kelas hugged him tightly and Julian wondered at it feeling _right_. “Oh, Julian, what a gift.”

“To have to literally hold me together while I fall apart for the hundredth time?”

“To _be able_ to hold you and be reassured that my husband is still fighting with all the incredible strength and dignity he has that has never ceased to impress me.”

Julian lifted one set of their clasped hands to his heart. “Well, when you put it that way,” he said, embarrassed.

“It is the truth,” Kelas said, and kissed Julian’s temple.

Julian jumped, his body tensing.

Kelas immediately let go, unlatching their fingers and laying open his arms. “I’m sorry, Julian, I’m sorry,” he said as Julian sat up.

“No, Kelas, it’s fine, I just—very slow, okay?” Julian leaned back against Kelas, reaching for his hands. “Skin to skin—well, skin to scales—in places that don’t usually have contact—that’s still incredibly intense. Humans are like that—we’re wired to need physical connection and when we don’t get it, or when we get pain instead of it, our neurological processors reprogram pretty dramatically to compensate. Skin is our largest organ, after all.” He held Kelas’ hands in his own, not looking up. “Can we do just hands, for now?”

Kelas squeezed his fingers. “We can indeed,” he said. “At your pace. I will remember; I know how shocking gentle touch can be after a lack of it.”

“Thank you for understanding, Kelas,” whispered Julian as he watched the birds outside. 

“You are most welcome,” Kelas answered, and the pair were silent for a long, long time.

***

“They seem nice,” Tir said as he and Shannon strolled awkwardly, a strange and elastic distance between them.

“Dr. Parmak and Julian? Yes, they—they are.”

“Are you…Shannon, are you in a relationship with Julian?” Tir stopped walking and turned to her.

Shannon stopped as well, not looking at Tir. “If you doubted, why did you come all this way?”

“I wanted to hear it from you. No subspace in the way, no misinterpreted facial expressions.”

“Not as broad a range of those these days,” Shannon said bitterly, brushing her fingertips over the scars around her eye.

Tir breathed out slowly. “You must know I have so many questions, Shannon; I’m still getting used to the reality that you’re alive, but after what little we were able to say last night I—I need to know. Is there another for you?”

Shannon balled her hands into fists before turning to Tir. “Do you have any idea how much I wish I could lie to you?” she half-whispered. “How much safer it would be for both of us if you just let me go, if I could hurt you enough that you move on?”

“Some,” said Tir. “I know only snatches of this organization that ran the ship you were on, Shannon, and snatches of snatches about what the ship was meant to do, but this is not the first time the symbiont has met shadowy organizations.”

Shannon winced slightly at the reference to Tir’s alienness. “They are not shadows,” she said, crossing her arms tightly. “They are monsters, and they don’t live under beds or in closets but they walk about on brightly-lit ships and they do not want me anywhere near you.”

“But what do _you_ want?”

“I want to be free of them,” Shannon breathed.

“Do you want that with me?”

“Oh, Miagu,” said Shannon in frustration, “don’t you see? That’s the whole point—being with you ensures they are with me because you are the thing they taught me to hate, to fear. I told you last night not to touch me and you said okay; I told you we had to speak Standard rather than Trill and you said you could do that. But do you know _why_? Do you know how much it frightens me to think of your hands on my skin? How bitter the Trill words taste in my mouth? Do you know that they had a whole year to teach me that loving you is the worst thing I could do to my own humanity, that _wanting_ you was a…a _malfunction_ of mine? Do you know how much it hurts to want to lie to you about everything, to tell you that I hate you and I never want to see you again just so you’ll go away and I don’t have to keep hearing them in my head?”

Tir closed his eyes, tensed his jaw, steadied himself. He looked at Shannon. “I don’t know. I don’t know what they did, or how, but I know that I thought you were dead and I find you alive again and I am willing to do whatever it takes, work with whatever limitations you need, to be with you, to show you that every night alone in our bed is seared into me and I will do anything not to have to go back to that.”

“Miagu, you don’t know them—you don’t know how much ‘anything’ can entail.”

“Shannon,” Tir said, stepping closer to her, sighing as she stepped away. “Please. I love you, still. You said that telling me you hate me is a lie, but there’s a lot of ground that isn’t hate. Do you love me?”

Shannon bit her lip. “This is rather a lot for a first date.”

“But not for a marriage.”

“No, not for that,” she agreed. “Will you walk with me to the garden? It’s—it’s a beautiful place, in its way.”

Tir bit his tongue so as not to demand an answer, a hope, and followed her. She was right; as they rounded the house to the back, a riot of life stretched toward him in the various flowers and grasses framing paths that wound back into themselves. This was clearly a passion, a defiance of the history of this planet that had seen so much death. Tir was astounded that so much plant life was flourishing so relatively soon after the Dominion bombardment of Prime; the previous hosts within him nodded in awe that two doctors and a government official had managed to drag such an oasis out of the silty ground.

“Are they all gardeners?” he asked.

“Garak is the one with the knack,” Shannon answered. “Dr. Parmak and Julian helped him along, and Dr. Parmak is the one who told Garak to keep it up when Julian…went missing.”

The parallel sat between them, sharp teeth bared. “Did they know he was alive, then?” asked Tir, steadying himself for the bite.

“They suspected. They didn’t know he was dead; nobody bothered to tell them either way, I think. It sounds like his parents took him away from this, although I don’t know how. Garak doesn’t seem like the type to have lax security, so there had to be some ruse somewhere.”

“Shannon, I—”

“How did she tell you?”

“What?”

Shannon turned toward him. “My sister. How did she tell you that I was—dead?”

Tir swallowed, the memory painful. “A subspace comm. She said that your ship had been…lost. Pirates, who miscalculated your ship’s structural integrity.”

“And you believed her?”

Tir reminded himself to breathe, to hear Shannon’s pain rather than stoking his own. “I didn’t want to, but I looked up the ship she said you were on—there _was_ a passenger ship lost to pirates. Your—your name was on the manifest. Akira told me she had a small service for you—I wasn’t invited.”

“Did you have a service?”

Tir sighed. “I tried. I gathered several of our friends from the university, but anything formal? I couldn’t, Shannon. I couldn’t say good-bye to you like that.”

“So you’ve been living in limbo for a year.”

“Limbo?”

Shannon chuckled without humor. “An old human concept—it was the space that wasn’t quite Hell but definitely wasn’t Heaven. A sort of neutral zone for the dead, but dull and listless.”

“Yes,” Tir replied quietly. “I have indeed been in Limbo.”

“I’m so sorry,” Shannon said. “I’m so sorry she put you through that.”

“Shannon,” Tir said, willing himself not to reach out to her, “I am just glad you are alive.”

There was a pause. “I’m not with Julian,” Shannon said at last.

“What?”

“Julian. We aren’t together. We were at the Center at the same time—well, he came about six months after me. We…we’re the only survivors of the ship.”

Tir looked at her, a thousand things warring with each other on his face. “Then he—”

“I thought you’d be safer,” Shannon interrupted, looking at her feet. “If the Center can alter passenger manifests, do you really think they can’t find a Trill searching for his wife?”

“Do not protect me at your expense, Shannon,” said Tir, his voice suddenly weighted with the lifetimes he carried. “We can face this together. You do not have to do this alone.”

“But I have been so alone this year,” Shannon said, and her voice was so small. “I—I could not bear surviving them only to be the reason you didn’t.”

“Oh, my _fenza_ bird,” said Tir, opening his hands wide at his waist. “Tir is a fighter and I, Miagu, fell in love with you. I hear your fear of them, but do not discount my own ability to be dangerous when necessary.”

Shannon looked at him, searching his eyes, before edging shyly up against him, resting her head on his shoulder as his arms encircled her as though the embrace would be enough to hold the universe at bay.

***

It was some time later that Shannon and Tir came in, a kind of timidity still lingering between them as their hands barely grazed each other, but Kelas could see some kind of attachment reforming. He smiled at it, feeling the hope rising within him that maybe, just maybe, Julian and Shannon both could heal, could love, could be loved. But this was the day; it was Garak’s time to believe. Could he bring himself to believe, too?

“We’re just setting together lunch,” Kelas said as the couple awkwardly circled the possibility of good-bye. “Tir, would you care to join us?”

Tir’s green eyes lit in gratitude and delight. “I would be most glad, Dr. Parmak,” he said, and Kelas did not miss Shannon’s look of appreciation as she passed him on the way to the kitchen.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Weirdly, there aren't many Cardassian birds mentioned in alpha or beta canon, so now we have _jaltim_ birds because I said so. The _fenza_ bird is not because I said so; they're beta-canon Trill creatures kind of like hawks. I like to think Tir would have made it an endearment because Shannon is that kind of fierce.
> 
> Also, all aboard the Kelas Fan Train, there's plenty of room to chat about how much I love that Cardassian.


	23. Chapter 23

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I would like to announce THIS IS FINISHED. As in, the document on my computer has "The End" on it. HOLY SNICK.  
> It is indeed 35 chapters and I will continue uploading a new chapter twice a week, but I wanted to reassure you that this has an ending and we are working toward it.

Tir proved to be not only an engaging lunch guest but a fascinating man in his own right. The host before Miagu had been a nurse and he swapped stories of inadequately staffed hospitals with the doctors. Tir and Dax had known each other for some time, though not in their current hosts, and Julian delighted in hearing tales of hosts he’d seen peeking through Jadzia and Ezri as they were in life. Through the meal, Tir was funny, personable, magnetic, and calm. Julian realized with a start that Tir reminded him somewhat of Captain Sisko.

He had not realized how much he missed the captain.

Yet for all his stories and cheer, neither Kelas nor Julian missed how Tir’s attention swirled around Shannon. He drew her deftly into memories of Miagu, light and sweet; he made sure her glass was refilled, her blind side carefully factored in. The love of her was quiet and patently plain as the pair sat laughing over a mishap with one of his students. Julian and Kelas exchanged a look of hope when Shannon reached out in her mirth and ever-so-briefly squeezed Tir's hand.

“I thank you for a wonderful meal with such good company,” Tir said sometime later, “but I think it is time I was off. May I come again tomorrow?" he asked Shannon.

Shannon looked at Kelas, who smiled in encouragement. “I think that would be good,” Shannon said, and Tir smiled widely before bowing to her and leaving.

The doctors returned to the kitchen to clear the tables, leaving Shannon to her own reactions, and if Julian let his fingers brush against Kelas’ as he handed over a plate, Kelas knew better than to respond with anything more than a smile.

***

“I want to do the other eye,” said Shannon, striding back into the kitchen with determination.

Julian and Kelas shared a glance. “I’m glad to hear it, Shannon,” said Kelas, “but I remind you it will take time to set up the surgery and to recover afterwards. Do you wish to do so with Tir so newly here?”

“Yes,” she said, running her fingertips over the white keloid streaks around her eye. “I want to erase them.”

Kelas set down his cloth. “The scars, or the Organization? Only one is even possible within my medical power.”

“The scars, of course,” said Shannon, her tone a little too forced. “I know you can't—can't do anything about…them.”

“Neither can he, directly,” answered Kelas and Julian looked at him in surprise.

“I survived the first eye, right?” challenged Shannon. “And it's been almost a month. You said even two weeks was plenty of time.”

“I did indeed,” said Kelas. “And I will do the surgery. As with any patient, however, it is important that I know that you are fully aware of the risks and implications and are not doing this on a post-date hope.”

“Kelas,” chided Julian. “You know Shannon has been thinking of this for a while. Don't underestimate her like that.”

Kelas held up his hands. “My apologies, Shannon. That was harsher than I intended.”

“Will you or won’t you do this?” asked Shannon in a tone with an audible layer of frost.

“Of course,” said Kelas. “I am sorry.”

Shannon left without answering.

“Well done, Kelas,” muttered Julian.

“I spoke as a physician, not a friend. Clearly, I chose wrong.”

“Incorrectly,” Julian corrected automatically. “And yes. But I do see your concern. If this were the first eye, I would share it. But she’s done this before; she knows what’s involved. I can’t blame her for wanting to undo the Center’s handiwork now that she’s with someone who knew her before it.”

Kelas’ eyes flicked over the network of scars he knew lay under Julian’s clothing and he kept his response to himself.

***

“Are you acting as guardian of the yard now?” asked Garak as he turned in toward his house and met Shannon perched on a flat rock.

“Depends,” she said. “Are you someone against whom I should guard?”

Garak sighed. He had hoped to have some time before this particular confrontation to switch his mind from the worries of Cardassia to the worries of the humans. However confrontation, he knew, never waited politely for a respectable time.

“Not when it comes to my own home,” he answered.

“But other places?”

Garak hesitated briefly. “Other places, sometimes.”

Shannon stood, brushing silt from her trousers. “He loves you so much, even _knowing_ you are a dangerous man, Garak,” she said with a frown. “Why is that?”

Garak laughed. “Oh, my dear, do let me know if you find the answer to that. I, too, am very curious.”

“He knows you lie?”

“Yes.”

“And it bothers him that you can and have killed people.”

Garak's fingers twitched. “Yes.”

“And there are whole chunks of you he doesn’t understand or know about?”

“Yes.”

“But he loves you.”

“The universe is a mysterious place, is it not?”

Shannon crossed her arms. “Why should I trust you again?”

Garak smiled, a flat thing that didn’t entirely reach his eyes. “Why did you trust me in the first place?”

“Not a lot of other options, really.”

“Ah. And what has changed?” Garak gestured to the yard, his still-rebuilding planet with its reports of new illnesses in some of the western cities, chronically low food supplies, a harvest yield that might not last them through the winter. He mentally shook his office from his mind— _focus, Elim._

“Not much,” Shannon admitted. “But you were so kind to me in the first few weeks; I…”

“Have I become unkind now?”

“No.” There was a pause and Garak waited, swallowing the urge to scream at this woman with her idealism that a relationship would not have lies, compromises, sleights of hand. It was so aggravatingly _human_ , and it surprised him to realize that at some point Julian had stopped being so such that this felt new and strange.

When had the Federation officer become a Cardassian? Was it good—or merely convenient for Garak?

“I’m sorry,” said Shannon, pulling Garak away from the startling realization. “I have no idea of your life and how you've lived it. For all I know, duplicity is a Cardassian virtue. It’s just—it’s so...alien.” This last was spoken to the ground and Garak sighed.

“I see it is alien to you, but it is natural to me, Shannon; just as your desire for constant transparency is natural to you and alien to me. Despite having lived among them for seven years, the Federation races still confuse me often. I can only say that my misinformation was done in service of your happiness, or what I understood to be what would bring you happiness.” _It's for your own good_ , he heard whispering in his mind, and he batted it away.

“Thank you, Garak,” Shannon said. “It seems we have a lot to learn from each other still.” She stood and stepped toward him, holding out her hand, palm outward. “Julian told me this is how friends greet each other,” she shrugged, “and I do want you to be my friend, Garak. I don’t understand that and I don’t understand you, but I’m tired of being afraid of what I don’t understand.”

Garak looked at her a moment before reaching out his own hand, gently pressing their palms together. “Shall we go in, my friend?” he said, letting his hand and the connection fall.

Shannon nodded, and they turned to the house.

***

The surgery was set for the following octal and Shannon was positively jumpy the next morning as she waited for Tir to arrive to tell him the news. 

“My goodness, Shannon,” laughed Julian as her leg jiggled under the table at breakfast, “you could just call over to his house and tell him to come faster, you know.”

Shannon shot him a look. “I very well will not, Julian Bashir,” she said, and Julian laughed harder.

“What is it that makes you so nervous, Shannon?” asked Kelas, swallowing the last of his tea. “Do you think he will not approve?”

“Well, it’s not really his to approve or not, since it’s my eye,” she said, drumming her fingertips on her thigh. “But—I don’t know. What if something goes wrong this time and he has to deal with it? What if I can see with both eyes and he thinks that that means I’m totally fine again? What if—”

“Shannon,” said Kelas gently, laying a hand over hers for a brief instant before pulling away. “Do not fight the _regnars_ before you can see them.”

Shannon’s brow furrowed in confusion.

“It’s kind of the Cardassian equivalent of ‘don’t count your eggs before they’re hatched’ but with more violence because, well, it’s Cardassian,” explained Julian, shrugging.

“What a culture you married into,” Shannon murmured, and Julian smiled. 

“Right? Fortunately it has some pretty handsome representatives to speak for it.” Julian reached over and squeezed Kelas’ hand; with surprise, Kelas turned his fingers over and squeezed back.

“How flattering,” Kelas said. The first perimeter alarm went off. “Ah, that will be—”

But Shannon was already out of her seat and opening the door.

***

“So when is the surgery?” asked Tir as the pair strolled leisurely through the garden.

“Next octal.”

“Octal?”

“Week,” Shannon amended. “Their weeks are eight days, so they never bothered using the Standard word when it didn’t mean quite the same thing.”

“And you trust Bashir and Parmak to do this.”

“They did my other eye,” Shannon gestured to herself, “and they did a pretty bang-up job, considering it no longer hurts and I can see out of it.”

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?”

Shannon stopped and looked at him. “Should I not be?”

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Tir turned back to her. “I only meant that your body is still recovering—”

“My body is doing a great deal better than it was two months ago when they hauled me out of the meditation room drugged beyond reasoning and blind as a bat,” Shannon said coldly.

Tir tensed. “Tell me about it, Shannon.”

“Why?”

“I’m trying to understand. We’ve talked about what’s going on at the university, we’ve talked about how I managed to get to Cardassia, we’ve talked about what life is like here for you, but you haven’t told me anything about the Center.”

“And why should I? Do you think it’s fun for me to relive any of that?”

“No,” said Tir, running a hand through his jet-black hair distractedly. “And I’m not trying to make you relive it. I’m trying to understand. Damn it, Shannon, I wasn’t here—I didn’t see—I don’t know anything about what happened. I don’t even know why you’re—blind.”

“Ah, so _you_ need information to put the puzzle of me back together.”

“What? No! I _want_ to be able to be here for you in the most helpful way, which I can do better if I have some idea of what hurts you.”

“This!” Shannon shouted. “ _This_ hurts! Giving _any_ space to the voices I can still hear in my mind that tell me wanting to go anywhere with you makes me a, a _traitor_ —that hurts. Being able to see only half the world because people who called themselves doctors couldn’t control their own machines and tore my eyes while they were torturing me to get me to change _hurts_. Having to stand in front of you as a broken and battered _thing_ that doesn’t live up to the woman you married _hurts_ , so is that enough knowledge for you to be _helpful_?”

Tir was silent, his fingers clenching and unclenching at his sides. “I did not know, Shannon. I did not know they tortured you.”

“Well, now you do.” Shannon started to walk on. Tir grabbed for her arm, caught it, and she spun away from him. “ _Don’t_ ,” she hissed, and Tir held his hands out as he waited for her to recalibrate, to find her way back. She breathed deeply, focusing, closing out the images of Tir smiling without her that were some of the last things she had seen until the dusty destruction of this devastated world. She remembered, instead, Julian’s smile, Parmak’s soothing voice, the feeling of Garak’s scaled fingers.

“Are you okay?” Tir asked for a moment.

“In absolutely no sense,” Shannon replied, opening her eye.

Tir nodded. “I meant at the moment. I’m sorry, I—I'm still learning not to touch you.”

Shannon sighed. “It’s not—Miagu, I don’t...” She shook her head, wrapping her arms around herself in frustration. The pair walked around the garden for some time, each lost in their own thoughts.

“Shannon?” Tir asked eventually.

“Mmm?’

“I’m happy you’ve found people who will help heal your eye.”

Shannon turned to him, searching his face. “I’m sorry I snapped at you.”

“Thank you.”

She rubbed the back of her neck. “I’ve been here for two months now, and they’ve been hard months. Garak and Parmak and Julian are great, but they have each other—even if they don’t quite realize that. I—didn't. I thought I was making the right decision to chase you away but God, Miagu, I missed you—” Her voice caught. “I missed you so much, and I was so scared, I’m _still_ so scared because you don’t know what these people are capable of and I don’t want you to know, I don’t want you to know how dark the shadows really are.”

“Shannon,” Tir said softly, reaching out and asking wordless permission, waiting for Shannon’s nod, taking her hands into his and kissing the fingertips with barely a brush of lips. “I have told you much of Tir’s experiences, but not all. I do not know the depth of your shadows, but I have seen nights without stars where the darkness seems to go on forever. I do not need you to relive anything for me, but I want you to know that if you need to talk through anything, I am here. I will listen, and I will tell you if I cannot bear it. Please, Shannon. You said that they have each other; I am here for you to have someone, too. Do not take from me the chance to be with you in this.”

Shannon leaned into him, burying herself in his embrace, breathing in his scent and refusing to hear Michael’s voice, feel the walls closing in on her. She twisted her fingers into Tir’s shirt, willing the light to stay here, to shine between them.

“When you are healed, will you come back to Trill with me?” Tir asked into her hair.

Shannon pushed away, breaking his loose hold, her head shaking side to side. “I can’t--I can’t decide that, I can’t go there, don’t you know there are _aliens_ there, that is where we _lived, they will find us there_.”

Tir held his hands open in front of himself, modulating his voice to a soothing tone. “I know, Shannon, I know that’s what you’re afraid of but I will protect you, I can protect you--”

“No you can’t!” she screamed at him, her voice sudden and sharp in the garden of plants neither of them could name. “No, you can’t! They fooled you with a _passenger list_ , Miagu Tir! I don’t care how many lifetimes you’ve had, they are an entire _organization_ , you don’t _know_ , you can’t, you _can’t_.” She stepped away from him, backing up one, two, three lengths.

“I know, but—”

“I think you should leave now.”

Tir clenched his jaw, breathed through his frustration. “Shannon, I—”

“Please go away.”

He had lived too many lives not to understand how to stop when needed. He nodded. “I will be at the nurse’s house if you need me, Shannon.” Tir turned to go and paused. “I cannot fight them if you will not teach me their weaknesses.”

“They don’t have any weaknesses.”

“And yet you stand on Cardassia Prime and all of the people who trapped you are dead.”

Shannon did not answer and after Tir left she continued to wander in the garden, heedless of the human and the alien who watched her from indoors with worry in their hearts.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If only trauma responses were linear and sensible.


	24. Chapter 24

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There is a brief moment in this chapter of dubious consent, fair warning. Those who have been traumatized are not always very good at boundaries--their own or others'--and so can make very poor decisions when acting out of their pain.

It was late when Shannon returned to the house, later even than Garak’s return. All knew of the brittle mood that held her and the dinner conversation was gentle, loose. She hated it, hated feeling like the odd one out, hated knowing that they understood better than anyone in the galaxy could. She excused herself to the study shortly after the meal and Julian let her go.

“I wish I had any idea what to say to her.” He settled on the couch with Kelas’ arm around him. Garak raised an eyeridge before settling in the chair opposite.

“I’m not entirely sure there is anything to be said at the moment,” Garak observed. “She and Tir must find their own path together, as you seem to be doing.”

Julian ducked his head, grinning. “It’s a little bit at a time,” he said, squeezing Kelas’ hand.

“You remain the one he has kissed,” Kelas teased gently.

_I remain the one who leaves every day_ , Garak thought to himself, _which surely isn’t running away from anything at all. Ah, Elim, are you now lying to yourself?_ “A treasure, to be sure,” he said with a light smile.

Julian watched him, watched the way the smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Garak, come sit with us.”

Garak’s eyes widened and Julian pulled in his long legs, patting the cushion next to him. After an assessing pause, Garak stood and sat, very gingerly, next to Julian, keeping a handsbreadth of distance between them.

Julian breathed deeply. “I don’t know how this is going to go, but I want you both to remember that I instigated this, okay?”

The two Cardassians murmured their affirmatives.

“Perhaps don’t touch my bare skin at all,” Julian said before leaning into Kelas and swinging his legs up over Garak’s, draping himself across them both. Kelas and Garak shared a look of shock over Julian’s head as he squeezed his eyes closed, his body rigid while he settled. After several moments of silence, they felt his muscles relax infinitesimally. 

“Julian?” asked Garak.

“Here,” said Julian, his eyes still shut. “Just—this is a lot, and I didn’t expect it to be quite so much.”

“You needn’t push this if it is uncomfortable, Julian,” replied Garak.

Julian opened his eyes. “But I want to include both of you.”

Garak smiled gently, carefully maneuvering Julian’s feet back to the floor so that the human sat upright between the aliens. “And, in your own way, you do. But—what is the human expression? From famine to feast?”

Julian laughed. “Not quite how I would have phrased it, but I see your point.”

“It took us all some time to get used to three originally, Julian,” reminded Kelas, sitting forward and bumping his shoulder against the lithe man’s. “It is all right if it takes time to do so again. We are not jealous of each other, Elim and I.”

“If you are about to say you are not worth being jealous over, Julian Bashir, I advise you refrain,” said Garak. Julian closed his mouth and pursed his lips. “Wise choice,” commended Garak.

“I wish—I wish I could—”

“We know, dearest one,” said Kelas. “But this, too, is good.”

Julian curled his hands into fists and stood up suddenly. “I’m going to check on Shannon,” he said, crossing to the study and knocking before entering and closing the door behind him.

Kelas reached over and found Garak’s hand without looking, pulling the other man to him. Garak scooted closer and held Kelas. “I believe in the night,” Kelas said.

“I’m beginning to try,” replied Garak softly.

***

“Shannon?”

The lump in the bed looked haphazard and strange in the darkness, only the tuft of black hair at the top of the blanket proving it wasn’t pillows. The starlight filtering through the window and the comm blinking artificially in the corner cast strange shadows across the bed.

“Shannon, please. What happened with you and Tir?”

Shannon’s form shrugged.

Julian took a deep breath and laid beside her, reaching out and brushing her shoulder lightly. “Talk to me.”

The form turned over, the sheets coming down to reveal only Shannon’s eyes—one dark and searching, the other murky and blank.

“Shannon?”

“Just—just hold me, Julian,” Shannon said, and Julian opened his arms. She snuggled into them, curling against his lanky form, and the pair drank in the comfort of touch that did not frighten, form that did not endanger. Their breathing slowed together and Julian was almost asleep when Shannon moved in his embrace, her head coming up so that her face was so close to his.

“Shannon?” he asked, half-awake.

She kissed him, a brief thing that deepened as she rolled him onto his back, her hands coming up to frame his face. Her tongue slid against his lips and Julian unthinkingly opened his mouth to taste her. He could hear the approval, _yes this is right_ , _she is right for you_ , his fingers coming up to rest against ridgeless, smooth skin, the warmth of a mammalian body pressed into his, the female curves calling out to be traced. Shannon tasted the remnant of tea on his lips, her mind applauding the tautness of the belly beneath her that contained nothing but the inner workings of a human as she pressed into him, feeling his hands slide down her throat, across her clavicle, cupping her breasts as she slid her hands under his shirt, her palms brushing against the taut skin of the burns above his hips—

“No,” Julian gasped, catching her wrists before rolling to dislodge her. “No, Shannon, stop, we can’t do this.”

“Why not? Clearly you're attracted to me.”

“We’re both married to other people.”

“Other _aliens_.”

Julian sat up, willing his body to calm down, fighting the arousal and the fear of her touch against his scars, sickened by the confusion of the training that rejoiced and the heart that reached for a pair of men on a couch. “What was your fight with Tir about?”

Shannon turned over, her back to Julian. “Nothing,” she said flatly.

“Shannon, come on. We’ve slept in the same bed for a month and we’ve never—done anything,” Julian said. “Something shifted.”

“Maybe I just wasn’t ready until now.”

“Until your husband whom you love came back? Seems odd timing.”

“Oh yeah?'” Shannon bit back, sitting up to face him. “And what about you? Yes, we’ve been sharing a bed for a month and _your_ husbands have been right down the hall the whole time.”

Julian felt his throat constrict. “Shannon, that’s not fair.” 

“Fair? _Fair_? Since when is _literally_ _anything_ about this whole fucking mess _fair_? You want to know where we fought about? Fine. Miagu wants to take me back to Trill after the surgery, a planet full of aliens, like it’s no big deal.”

“A planet full of aliens unlike the planet full of aliens you’re currently on?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I honestly don’t, Shannon,” said Julian, folding his long legs in to face her fully, willing his body to calm. “I don’t think you want to stay here long-term; the holding pattern has its merits, but it’s not a real solution. You've said you don’t want to go back to Earth and risk your sister finding you. Anywhere in the Sol system would carry that risk and anywhere outside has aliens. The Center’s training doesn’t work not just because it’s xenophobic and wrong but because we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. Humans are out in space, and aliens are out in space, and despite how big space is we can’t just ignore each other.”

“Spoken like a true Starfleet sycophant.”

That stung. “Uncalled for and untrue, Shannon. Trust me, I have my own issues with Starfleet.” A nightmare that had no name but a number grinned evilly in his mind. 

“Is that why you left?”

“We’re not talking about me right now.”

“What if I relapse?” Sharman burst out. “What if I can’t ever be with Miagu, can’t speak the language, can’t _live_ there? And even if I can, what if they find me again? I can’t survive this a second time, Julian.”

Julian hesitated, his own constant worry roiling in his stomach at the thought of going back, _we weren’t finished with you_. He reached out to her, hearing everything neither of them knew how to name, and she curled up against him, her fingers twined in his shirt. “That’s a lot of ‘if’s, Shannon, that don't have to be fixed today. And Miagu seems like a pretty determined guy—now that he knows what to look for, I don’t think it’ll be so easy to catch him off-guard.”

Shannon snorted softly. “When did you get all hopeful?”

“I’ve been listening to Kelas a lot, lately.”

“Good.” A long pause made Julian wonder if she had drifted off to sleep. “I’m sorry, Julian. They’re—they’re good for you.” Shannon yawned, relaxing in his arms.

Julian waited, listening as her breath evened out, settling himself to be comfortable with this warm human wrapped against him. “They are, I think,” he whispered before letting his own eyes drift shut.

***

Blinking himself awake, Julian quietly unwound from beneath Shannon and slipped out to the kitchen.

“Good morning,” said Garak, dressed and sharp and ready as always. Julian, who did not fully function for at least half an hour after waking, had always envied his early-bird husband. “Is Shannon still asleep?”

“Yeah,” said Julian. The evening before tingled on his skin, the weight of his husbands and the curves of Shannon both pressing confusingly into his memory. “Garak, about last night—”

“It was good, Julian. I am honored by how much you are willing to try,” interrupted Garak, and Julian realized he was talking about the couch but Julian was talking about the bed and suddenly the difference seemed insurmountable. How could he tell Garak, Garak who had waited so patiently, Garak who loved him despite everything, _oh hey I cheated on you in your own house with exactly what you can never be_?

“I do love you, Elim,” Julian said instead of all the things he wasn’t sure how to say, and Garak stopped putting away his dishes to turn fully to Julian.

“I know,” Garak said softly. “But I am glad to hear it, all the same.”

Impulsively, Julian took one step, two, three toward Garak, reaching out _to the ridges that aren’t human, grey skin that despoils_ and cupping Garak’s jaw in his hand. “May I kiss you?” Julian whispered.

Garak blinked in surprise before closing the remaining distance, his lips barely skimming over Julian’s, and Julian slid his hand back into Garak’s hair and pulled him closer still, tasting him, savoring him, and Garak’s hands slid around his waist and the voices screeched in protest and Julian ignored them, leaning into his beloved with fervor, relearning the feel of Garak’s tongue, the coolness of his mouth, the slight scratch of Garak’s nose brushing against his own.

After some time, Garak drew back for breath, his hair mussed and his eyes slightly glazed. “Well,” he said.

Julian grinned. “Well, yourself. Kelas has been keeping you in practice.”

Garak fought down a laugh. “Ah, well, I would not characterize it in _quite_ that way.” He realized he still had his arms around Julian’s waist and began to pull away.

“Not yet,” murmured Julian, laying his head on Garak’s shoulder. “You’re not late yet, are you?”

“I am right where I need to be,” Garak said, turning his head to breathe in the human scent of Julian’s unruly hair, his thumb softly stroking the shirt-covered line of Julian’s spine. They stood there for some minutes, resting with each other, marveling in this reality, this defiance.

“You should probably get going,” Julian said after a while. He pulled back and Garak let him go, already missing the warmth of the lean body. “You have a planet to care for, after all.”

“And a husband,” Garak replied.

“And two husbands,” Kelas said as he entered the room. “Although I admit, both of us can certainly take care of ourselves.”

“Good morning, _ss’lei_ ,” Garak said as he stepped around Julian to head for the door. He stopped to slide a hand through Kelas’ still-loose hair, kissing him gently at the tip of the _chUfa_. “Comm if you need anything, yes?”

“As ever,” said Kelas. “But it is daytime; all, you tell me, shall be well.”

The pair shared a smile as Kelas kissed Garak lightly before shooing him out on his way.

“Feeling better?” Kelas asked as he set water to boil after he heard the front door close.

“Feeling settled,” Julian replied. “Kelas, I want you to reset my forearm.”

Kelas paused, turning to look at Julian full on. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure. I want to be able to help in Shannon’s surgery.”

“Then we will have to take a journey to the hospital; I don’t have the equipment here.” Kelas paused, obviously searching for the right words. “Did you speak with Shannon last night? The place where Tir is staying is on the way and I would like to take her along to see him, but it did not seem that they ended things well yesterday.”

_You didn’t speak with her, no, you stuck your tongue halfway down her throat_ , accused a voice in his mind, and Julian felt suddenly furious that his mind did not want him to kiss the ones he should but apparently was fine also condemning him for fraternizing with those he shouldn’t. _It’s because you’re the one who’s wrong,_ slipped the voice, definitely the one of mercury that burned as it passed through, _you’re the one who’s sick, who infects others, who cannot be trusted_.

“Julian?”

Julian held out a hand, palm up flat, and Kelas tentatively took it. Julian squeezed hard, almost too hard for the mended and re-mended bones, and Kelas breathed through the pressure. “Come back to me, Julian,” Kelas said.

“She kissed me,” Julian ground out, his eyes shut tightly.

“Shannon?”

“She’s worried about going back to Trill and I’m exactly who the Center taught her was acceptable—and she for me—and I’m sorry, Kelas, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to betray you like that and then I didn’t tell Elim like it was fine and I’ve screwed up again and—”

“Hey,” Kelas cut in, “hey, Julian, Julian, look at me.” He squeezed back, ignoring the sharp ache of it, until Julian opened his eyes and focused. “Thank you for telling me, but you said that she kissed you.”

“I kissed her back.”

“Still, it does not sound as though you chose the kiss. And I highly doubt you are going to leave me, leave us, for Shannon. Are you?”

Julian shook his head.

“You made your choice of Elim this morning. You are making your choice of me now. You are forgiven, if forgiveness is needed—and freely, beloved. If you want to tell him later, that is fine. If you never want to tell him at all, that is fine.”

“But I kissed her back.”

“She is a beautiful woman. I can imagine it would be difficult not to, in the middle of things.”

“You wouldn’t.”

“Ah, Julian,” chided Kelas, sitting with him but not letting go of his hand. “Be fair to yourself. I do not share the same desire you and Elim do for her kind; it is not the same for me to say no to an _isca_ flower as for you to set aside an _elta_ leaf.”

“But you two have been so patient—”

“And you two have been through so much. Tell me, my Julian, to ease us both; are you planning to continue with Shannon? To have sex with her?”

“No!”

“Then you have informed me and you have done justice enough. Do not keep biting yourself over it.”

Julian smiled a half-smile. “Beating.”

Kelas sighed. “But they are both forms of violence?”

“Yes, but we beat ourselves up over things, not bite.”

“This Standard seems to be in my grasp and then is not at all.”

“You’re doing great, Kelas. I’m sorry you have to—”

“Ah ah, no, Julian. This is a street we have walked before.”

“Aren’t they all?”

Kelas raised the hand in his to his lips, making sure Julian met his eyes and understood, before kissing the tan knuckles. “But if we put signs on them this time, we will know where we are walking.”

Julian hesitated a moment before pulling on Kelas’ hand with a sudden jerk, bringing the pair close together, and kissing Kelas on the cheek. “I do love you, Kelas Parmak, even when I have no idea what to do with that information.”

Kelas smiled and brushed his cheek with his free hand, a bit dazed. “I would say you have several very good ideas about what to do,” he answered.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The comparison Kelas makes is Cardassian botany: an _isca_ flower is purely for decoration, but _elta_ leaves are edible and considered a delicacy.


	25. Chapter 25

“Julian,” said Shannon quietly as she entered the kitchen in the later morning. “Will you walk with me?”

Julian looked to Kelas. “We have time yet,” Kelas said. “Go.” Julian nodded to him and went with Shannon out the door to the garden. They walked a moment, the space between them strangely familiar—it felt like the distance they both kept from the ones they had been told not to love, the distance filled with everything they didn’t know how to want, how to keep.

“I’m so sorry, Julian,” Shannon said eventually, her voice resigned. “I can understand if you want me to leave.”

“Leave?” Julian stopped walking in surprise. “Shannon, I don’t want you to leave.”

“But last night—”

“Was a lot,” Julian said. “And it was wrong, but it’s not like I—not like I didn’t kiss you back.”

Shannon looked at him, the peculiarly cocked angle of her head so that she could see him with her one eye now so much a part of her that Julian could read its degrees like another language. “It was not your doing; I was the one who started it, I overwhelmed you. It wasn’t—it wasn’t fair, _I_ wasn’t fair on what I did or what I said. You don’t deserve that, especially from me.”

“Especially?”

“I know better than most how cruel it is to push on the places that are already wounds.”

The pair walked on in silence for a bit and Shannon looked back toward the house. “I take it you told them.”

“Kelas, yes. Garak, no.”

“If you’re trying to spare my relationship with Garak—”

“Trying to spare my own, more like,” Julian chuckled without much humor. “People who don’t know them well don’t realize it, but Elim has the much softer heart between the two of them. This...this will hurt him differently, and I have already hurt him in so many ways.”

Shannon stopped, putting a hand on his arm to turn him toward her. “Julian, I think seeing you hurt is what hurts him most of all. And this was my doing, not yours. Show him that you’re healing and that will go quite a ways.”

Julian closed his eyes and leaned into her touch. “Am I healing, Shannon?” he asked, eyes still closed.

She ran her hand up his arm reassuringly. “Faster than I am, I think. You seemed almost comfortable with Parmak just now.”

He opened his eyes and smiled. “Felt almost comfortable, too. Which reminds me.” Julian straightened up, pulling himself just beyond her reach. “I’ve asked Kelas to reset,” he breathed deeply, “to reset my forearm where the radius didn’t heal properly. We have to go to the hospital for that and the place Tir is staying is on the way. Do you want us to drop you off to talk to him?”

Shannon stepped away, turning out to the garden and crossing her arms.

“You need to talk to him, Shannon.”

“To tell him about last night? I mean, I did already lie to him about being in a relationship with you, might as well save that one.”

Julian came up on her sighted side. “I didn’t mean about that. You can tell him or not; _I_ certainly won’t say anything. It’s between us, and you know it was wrong and what you do next is your call. But you were that angry at him, or that frightened by him, or maybe both, that I became an option neither of us had seriously considered before. I don’t think it’s wise to let that fester. Shannon,” he bumped his hip against hers and waited until she looked at him, “we’re both healing. This is part of that.”

Shannon’s hands tightened around her elbows. “I don’t think I can go back to Trill, Julian.”

“Then don’t go back to Trill. But that doesn’t necessarily mean leaving Tir.”

“Yes it does,” she scoffed. “Would you ask Parmak or Garak to leave Cardassia? Trill is where Tir’s life is.”

“Trill is where _Miagu’s_ life is, perhaps. But Tir’s been all over the place, probably, and can adapt. And trust me one hundred percent when I say this, Shannon, because I have it on the highest authority,” _Cardassia can wait_ , “that if I absolutely needed either Kelas or Elim to leave with me so that I would be okay, they would.”

She stared at him. “But this is their home.”

Julian smiled gently. “And I am their husband. I wouldn’t want to keep them away forever, but we would make it work. Elim lived in exile for seven years and Kelas lived—off-planet for three, they’d be okay.” He thanked the stars for having caught himself before naming _where_ Kelas had been. “Tir will help Miagu cope. If he’s willing to come all the way to Prime for you, Trill is not the most important thing to him.”

Shannon mulled this over. “You think he really still loves me, Julian, me with all this?” She gestured to her eye, to her heart.

Julian gently rested an arm around her shoulders. “I’d say it’s a pretty safe bet.”

“Even though I cheated on him?”

“Even though. I would explain that one to him, however, rather than letting him find it out accidentally at some point. I think it would do you some good to acknowledge it, too; I appreciate your apology, but I’m not the only one you hurt last night.”

Shannon leaned into his embrace. “You really are healing.”

The pair watched the breeze blow through the flowerless stalks of the garden for a few moments. “Let’s go get your arm and my relationship fixed,” Shannon said at last, and with a laugh Julian led them back inside.

***

“It feels so strange to be back,” Julian said as he and Parmak entered the hospital. He held onto the bright warmth of Shannon’s hug as they dropped her off to talk with Tir, her whispered prayer for strength still tingling against his throat before she had squared her shoulders and met the wary Trill with an invitation to walk in the pleasant winter warmth. Kelas had shivered at the idea and Julian had laughed, scooting up next to him in the skimmer to offer his body heat for the short ride on to the hospital. They had sat in the skimmer for a few minutes in silence, enjoying the closeness that needed nothing more, Julian pleased to realize that the mercury voice was quieter now.

“Would you like to come back to work here, eventually?” asked Parmak as he led them to a small room.

Julian sighed. “I want to work again, Kelas, I do. I just—I don’t know when, if ever, I’ll be able to treat Cardassians all day every day.” His fists clenched in frustration.

“Hey,” said Parmak softly, fingertips brushing against Julian’s shoulder as he held the door open. “One day at a time, okay? You are about to let me heal a wound you thought you’d carry for a long time yet, so ‘ever’ seems flexible.”

Julian smiled at him. “I don’t know how you do it, Dr. Parmak,” he said, entering the room and perching on the bed.

“Do what?” asked Parmak, following.

“Continually reassure me like it doesn’t kill you to watch this.”

Parmak stopped in the middle of laying out the necessary tools, his grey and white hands splayed against the instruments. “A great many things have killed me, Dr. Bashir,” he answered, his voice unexpectedly hushed. “I find I, like Cardassia, have a peculiar knack for resurrection.”

Julian didn’t know how to answer that, instead reaching out and covering one hand with his. Parmak turned his hand over and laced their fingers together, the familiarity and the newness of it causing them both to inhale, feeling the intimacy of such rarely touched skin slide on meaning-filled scales.

“Shall we?” Parmak said, breaking the silence.

Julian pulled back his hand, holding out his arm, only slightly flinching as Parmak touched the bare skin, watching his husband with avid eyes as Parmak patiently knit him back together.

***

“I’m sorry, Miagu,” said Shannon as they both leaned against a _boddoh_ tree.

Tir sighed slightly. “Shannon, I know that I have no idea what the last year has been like but I’m trying to understand. Please, _fenza_ , talk to me.”

Shannon reached out without looking and felt Tir’s hand clasp hers. She breathed deeply, letting the contact exist, willing away the sound of her own voice saying she was getting better, she did not miss him anymore. “It is a place—it _was_ a place where we were taught that what came most naturally was wrong. It was not only inhuman but _sick_ to love outside our species, to—to engage in...” She unconsciously brushed her chest with her free hand.

“Shannon,” said Tir, squeezing her other hand.

“I let them erase the scars, in the hospital,” she said, still staring out over the half-gathered piles of rubble that more frequently dotted the landscape now that they were closer to the city proper. “The Cardassian nurses—and Dr. Parmak. He’s never brought it up since, but there were...there were burns, and cuts, and bone bruises. That’s why Julian and Parmak are headed to the hospital now—Julian is having a harder time letting Parmak heal the visible things.”

“Why?”

Shannon shrugged. “I think he needs the reminder, for some reason.”

“And you don’t?”

She laughed with no humor at all. “I’m still blind in one eye. I see the scarring on my face every day; I didn’t need the burns I couldn’t see to remember that they had taken everything.”

“Not everything,” said Tir softly. Shannon finally turned to see him; his moss-green eyes were deep with sorrow, love, and a familiar plea she had seen in Cardassian eyes looking at another.

“I kissed him,” Shannon said abruptly.

“Who?”

“Julian. Last night. I kissed him. And he kissed me back.”

Tir swallowed and let go of her hand. “Why are you telling me?”

Shannon opened her mouth with a ready reply but closed it, swallowing the words that would wound, that would be no better than the dismissive disgust the Center had sliced into her flesh. “I was so scared,” she said instead, her voice small. “Miagu, I don’t know if I’m ever going to be able to be the wife you want, the wife you _deserve,_ the wife I promised to be. I don’t know if I can go back to that. But in that moment I knew I want to try, and I know that going to Trill with you will make trying infinitely harder. I can’t handle an entire planet of you, Miagu, I can’t, and trying to explain that was so much harder than simply running away from you and finding the type of person they were trying to make me love, anyway.”

Tir took a deep breath and reached toward Shannon’s face, moving slowly so that she could watch him, see the gesture, allow it. He trailed his fingertips down her temple and over her neck, where the Trill spots would run if she had them. “Do you love him?”

Shannon shook her head. “And he doesn’t love me, not that way. But I did kiss him, which was completely unfair to him and, differently, unfair to you. I’m sorry, Miagu.”

He let his hand fall and took her hand in his again. “Thank you for telling me,” he said. “I am sorry that they created a world where you feel unsafe with me.”

She squeezed his hand. “Will you help me relearn that it was a lie?”

Tir leaned toward her, his shoulder scraping loose bark off the tree like silver filaments. ”Every day,” he said.

She reached over and brushed off the loose bark strands, twirling one between her fingers, and the two sat in contented silence.

***

Several days later, Garak reflected that he knew better than to relax when things were going well. He re-read the screen in front of him and checked the clock on his desk; Shannon’s surgery would have just begun. Tir would no doubt be pacing the hall and utterly unable to hear of anything not having to do with her wellbeing, but Garak knew this could not wait. It had waited long enough. Shannon’s nervous excitement of a few nights before played in his mind, her hope for the surgery cheerful and genuine across the table of the five of them as Julian, Julian whose body no longer seemed wound tightly enough to break, Julian whose own smile came readily when trading gibes with Garak now, had teased her about having both eyes back. That the two had been able to joke about something so steeped in pain and horror had made Garak feel warm in a way he hadn’t dared hope for so many months.

He should have known better; happiness, he knew quite well, was a fleeting and easily stolen thing. Clenching his jaw, he signaled his aide to call his skimmer, leaving word that he was headed to the hospital and would not be back for the day.

***

“Councilor Garak,” said the nurse at the desk when Garak entered. “Are you all right?”

“The Trill Tir,” Garak replied, “where is he?”

“He is in the surgical waiting room,” the nurse said, “but the human woman is not yet out of surgery—”

“I need to talk to him, not her,” Garak said. “Thank you.” He hurried past the desk, glad of his privilege via his office and his husbands to essentially having the run of the building. 

“Garak?” said Tir when Garak reached the waiting room. “Is everything okay? I thought you were working today.”

“Tir,” said Garak, “I know this is terrible timing, but as soon as Shannon is well enough, you two have to leave. The Parallel Organization knows you’ve reconnected and they’re waiting for you back on Trill.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Dun dun DUNNNNN we're getting toward the end and the plot is going to pick up quite a bit now. Be prepared.
> 
> Also, blessed Ash Wednesday to any Christian readers I may have today. May you be reminded of your createdness and your creativeness both as we begin the season of Lent.


	26. Chapter 26

Tir stared at Garak. “What do you mean, ‘waiting’ for me?”

“Tir,” began Garak, before taking a deep breath. “Sit with me a moment.” He gestured at the standard issue chairs.

“Should we be talking about this here?”

Garak smiled a grim smile. “Trust me, this hospital is safer than most government buildings. My husbands work here, remember?”

Tir nodded absently and sat while Garak perched next to him.

“Tir, from one former agent to another, how far back was the host that was in infiltration and reconnaissance?”

“What?!”

Garak sighed. “Please. When you arrived, I looked back through the trail you left of finding Shannon and it was a well-concealed trail. Civilians do not know how to do that. Astrophysics professors do not know how to do that.”

“But you do.”

“I do not advertise my time with the Obsidian Order, but neither do I forget it.”

Tir looked down. “I didn’t know if you’d admit it.”

“You’ve done your homework before arriving, then.”

Tir looked at Garak, defiant. “I wanted to know who was holding Shannon this time.”

Garak held up his hands placatingly. “A wise decision and a smart move. I would have done the same. But your skills are out of date; I could follow you, and so can they.”

“But you said they were on Trill?”

“They haven’t quite figured out that both of you are here, I don’t think, only that she is still alive and you are connected to her.” Garak grimaced slightly. “Besides, I have put several…protocols in place myself within the security of Prime.”

“To protect Julian?”

“To protect everyone.”

Tir’s expression was now one of appraisal, as though he were just beginning to appreciate how deep Garak’s skillset went. “Three hosts,” he said.

“And Miagu?”

“I am the fifth Tir host. Jiria Tir was in a black ops part of Starfleet called—”

“Section 31,” Garak finished with him.

“You know it?”

Garak’s jaw clenched. “Well enough.”

“I’m sorry to hear it. Jiria Tir’s tenure was…brief, and has been useful to have as a skillset for the Tir symbiont but is not filled with memories that are pleasant.”

“Such is the life,” Garak said in a low voice.

Tir nodded. “But those skills are, as you say, out of date. Jiria was trained in the early years of Trill joining the United Federation of Planets, some hundred and fifty years ago. I have done what I can to keep up, but it is no longer my line of work.”

Garak looked at the man with new admiration. “For skills that are 150 years out of date, you did quite well,” he said. “But not well enough. I intercepted some conversation that suggests the Organization is waiting for the two of you to return to Trill to retrieve Shannon and complete her…treatment.” Garak swallowed the word bitterly.

“Why?” asked Tir, his face drawn. “Why would they take her back? Can’t they admit the failure and move on?”

“Decidedly not,” Garak said. “For an organization like this, there can _be_ no failure.”

Tir sat in silence for a moment. “Then I cannot take her back to Trill.”

“I would not advise it, no.”

“She didn’t want to go, anyway,” Tir said with a sad smile. “Too many aliens, she said.”

Garak hesitated, not wanting to lay bare his own relational difficulties but knowing that this man, of all people, would understand. “They were taught to fear the very ones they love,” he said, “and hate us most of all. Has—has she told you much of their tactics?”

“Some,” Tir said, his eyes going flat. “Enough for me to understand why you destroyed the ship entirely.”

“It was not just retribution, but yes. I did not know as much then as I do now and I must say, the added knowledge has only solidified my decision.”

“There are always people like this, I know, but it doesn’t make sense, Garak. It doesn’t make sense, in this day and age, to promote xenophobia like humans aren’t in every corner of the quadrant. What do they want the rest of us to do, stay on our own planets while they go sailing around space?”

“I think that’s exactly what they want,” said Garak. “I think they want to forget that others made it to space before they did, that others might know more than they do, might have some kind of advantage.”

Tir sighed and leaned back in his chair. “You’re right. Some of the people I—Jiria—encountered in the Section were so full of fear of being outwitted or outgunned by ‘the aliens,’ they sometimes forgot I was exactly what they were so determined to hate.”

Garak stretched his fingers on his lap. “I am in no position to judge another race for its xenophobia,” he said quietly, “for my own has been brought to its knees by it. But I do know that attempting to burn that into another to soothe your own panic only results in a multiplication of pain.”

The pair sat together, musing, remembering. “What shall we do, then?” said Tir into the silence at last.

“We?”

“Surely you must know that I’m not going anywhere Shannon can’t go.”

“I would advise you have that conversation with her,” said Garak. “Among other things, she has had rather a lot of being told rather than asked about the events of her life of late. I find that a little acknowledgement of choice goes a long way.” 

“Of course,” said Tir. “But I don’t want to ask her to come with me until I have somewhere in mind to go. Do you have suggestions?”

“Several,” said Garak, and the pair turned together to discuss the best way to keep the couple safe in the vast reaches of space.

***

“A success, Doctor,” said Parmak as he and Bashir left the operating theater and scrubbed down, “a fine success.”

“Success indeed, Doctor,” replied Bashir with a smile, and the old familiarity felt comfortable, well-worn, right. They finished cleaning as the nurses wheeled Shannon to a room for recovery and went out to tell Tir the good news.

“Well, Professor Tir,” said Parmak, “owing to the prowess of the fine physician Dr. Bashir—”

“And the deft hands of Dr. Parmak,” cut in Bashir.

“We have successfully repaired Shannon’s left eye. Within an octal she should be able to start exercises for binocular vision and be well on her way to a full recovery.” The joviality of them both drained as Parmak and Bashir noticed Garak seated next to a very tense Tir.

“Doctors, I cannot thank you enough,” said Tir. “Is she awake?”

“Not yet,” said Parmak. “Councilor, what is wrong?”

Garak looked at him, then at Julian. “The Parallel Organization knows Shannon survived the ship,” he said.

Julian’s mind reeled and he stumbled backwards slightly, clasping hard the hand Parmak instinctively threw out to steady him. “Do they know she’s here?”

“No,” said Garak, “but they know that Tir has reconnected with her and was going to resume their life together on Trill.”

“Was?”

“I won’t do anything until I’ve spoken with Shannon,” Tir said, “but it would be best if she and I dropped off the grid for a while.”

“Garak,” said Parmak, knowing that Julian wanted to ask, knowing that Julian would not. “Do they know who else survived?”

Pain and rage alike flashed through Garak’s eyes. “Yes.”

Julian buckled fully at this and Parmak barely caught him, easing them both to the ground.

“Julian,” said Garak, crossing quickly to them and kneeling next to his husbands, “they don’t know you’re here.”

“They always know, they always find out,” said Julian, scratching at his arms underneath his scrubs, rocking in his distress, “they will be _so angry_ this time, they always forget prep when they’re angry, they don’t listen, they never listen.”

Parmak grabbed at his wrists, holding his hands still as the blood began to bead along his forearms from the shallow scratches that had broken the bronze skin. “Dr. Bashir,” Parmak said, “Doctor, stay here, stay here with me. Can you do that? Can you look at me?”

Bashir’s whole body shuddered and his fingers flexed convulsively in Parmak’s grasp, his arms trying to pull away, but Parmak didn’t let go. “Dr. Bashir, focus on me, on _me_.”

Clearly fighting within himself, Bashir looked up at Parmak, his eyes darting. “Don’t let them take me, Kelas,” he said, his voice heartbreakingly childlike.

“I would never let that happen willingly,” Parmak said, and impulsively brought Julian’s fingertips to his mouth, kissing them lightly, letting them settle on the ridges on his chin. “Stay here with me, Julian, and breathe. Breathe with me.”

The pair inhaled deeply, Julian’s shaky breath raggedly matching Parmak’s pace, and exhaled slowly, again, again. Garak found himself breathing along with them, grateful beyond measure for Parmak’s calmness, his iron strength cloaked in a mild demeanor. After some moments Julian’s body relaxed slightly.

“Will you let me clean these cuts if I let go, Doctor?” asked Parmak, and Julian nodded.

“I’m sorry, Garak,” he said as Parmak helped him stand up. “I’m sorry I overreacted and probably scared you.”

“Oh, Julian,” said Garak, despairing, “it is not an overreaction to be afraid of something we know is fearsome.”

Julian shrugged, head down.

“Julian.” Garak slowly reached out a hand, making sure the human could see it, before hooking a finger under Julian’s chin and raising his head to meet his eyes. “I forgive you, for frightening me.”

Julian’s jaw clenched as he reached up and placed a hand in Garak’s, squeezing tightly. “They will not stop at me if they know the ship was you.”

Garak’s eyes iced over. “I did not know them, before. I would like to see what they think they can do now that I know."

"Please, Garak," said Julian, his voice deadly earnest, “do not underestimate them. I know you are fearsome in your own right but please, please—you don’t know what they’re capable of, what they’ve threatened—” He cut himself off, dropping Garak’s hand.

“Julian?” Garak searched his beloved’s face. “What more do you know?”

Julian didn’t answer as Parmak arrived with a dermal regenerator and the pair walked away to tend to the scratches.

***

The four men, by unspoken agreement, all stayed at the hospital waiting for Shannon to awake. Julian took up his post by her bedside again, across from Tir, and Tir tried not to feel slighted by it. Julian’s reaction had unnerved him, proving that he really did not understand how deep the fear of this Center went, how devastating their time there had been. His heart raged at the people who had twisted the woman he loved into someone who was so frightened, so cowed, so different from the vibrant and audacious dancer who had won him. He could see the same anger, in flashes, on Garak’s face as he watched Julian from the far corner of the room and realized anew how right Shannon had been to warn him of how difficult it would have been for her to return to Trill.

“You were right,” he whispered to the still form in front of him.

“I usually am,” Shannon said sleepily, and all four of them started back in surprise. Parmak and Bashir immediately snapped into doctor mode, checking her vitals and asking her questions, explaining the disorienting weight of the bandage over half of her head, how long she had been asleep. The medical jargon soothed her, the familiarity of Parmak and Bashir grounding her in the moment. Tir felt a heavy sorrow pull at him that he should be the bearer of such a terrible new development, but he had refused Garak’s offer to tell her.

“Shannon,” Tir said when Bashir and Parmak were satisfied enough to back off.

“Miagu?” Shannon said in confusion, tilting her head to see him with her one good eye. “Miagu, you’re here.” 

“Of course,” Tir said. “Do you remember my coming to Prime?”

“Oh—yes. I meant— _here_ , here.” She moved to sit up and Bashir gently pushed her back down, murmuring directives about steadiness and rest. Defeated for the moment, Shannon lay still. “I…I wasn’t sure if you’d want to see…this.” She gestured to the bandage.

“I didn’t watch the surgery, no,” said Tir with a smile, “but I wouldn’t have missed you waking back up for the world.”

“Which world?” Shannon grinned.

“Whichever one you want to go to. Shannon…” He paused, unsure how to begin, but he knew their conversation could not wait. He looked up at Bashir.

“Perhaps we should wait in the hall,” Bashir said, but Tir surprised himself by shaking his head.

“No, you are her friends. Stay.”

"Miagu? What’s going on?”

Bashir resettled and Tir looked down at Shannon, moving slowly to rest his hand on hers, waiting for her to take it. The contact still felt electric after so long, the shades of brown melting into each other. 

“Miagu?”

“Shannon, they know. The Organization—they know you and Dr. Bashir survived.”

Shannon’s hand clenched on Tir’s and her eye dashed between his. “How do you know?”

“Councilor Garak intercepted some information. They—they’re waiting for us to show up on Trill. It turns out you were right, _fenza_ ; we will not be going back.”

"We?”

Tir took a deep breath, grounding himself in the reality of the two of them, together. “I vowed to you that it would be us, us until Miagu was no longer, us forever in Tir’s memory. I do not want to go back on that vow. You cannot go back to Trill, and I do not want to go without you. If you’ll have me, we will run together, wherever that may take us.”

Ignoring Bashir, Shannon sat up, swaying slightly with the shift in blood pressure. After a moment’s recalibration, she stared at Tir. “This is exactly what I didn’t want for you,” she said. “You have a life—you have students, and family, and your duties to the symbiont. What if we never have to stop running? What if something happens and I can’t get Tir to another Trill? Are you really willing to risk the equivalent of exile for me?”

Five lifetimes’ worth of love and anger and sorrow and hope rolled through Miagu in a wave and he knew that Tir was giving xir blessing. “I am willing, Shannon. I will fight them with you, I will run with you, I will stay with you, if you will have me. I mourned you once and I will not do that again, not while you live. And if you do not want me then I will respect that and I will fight them anyway because they have stolen your trust in yourself and that is a crime that demands justice. I vowed my life to you, Shannon Okeke; it is tied to yours now until my markings fade and the pools run dry.”

“Will you not hate me when you think of all you’ve lost?” Shannon whispered. “Am I enough to make up for what they have taken?”

Tir raised her hand to his lips and softly kissed its back. “It is not that kind of equation, dear heart. Will I not hate the empty house that you are not in? Is my life not built to have you take part in it?”

She stared at him a moment longer in silence before turning to the room. “Garak?”

“I am here,” Garak answered, crossing to the bed so she could see him.

“Is there no other way?”

Garak sighed. “I wish there were, Shannon, but at this point I do not see one. In future, perhaps, but they have caught us off-guard and I would see you safely hidden before we try to put together any other plans.”

“Julian—they know about you, too? Where will you go?”

“Right here,” said Julian, taking her free hand between his. “I have enough—enemies elsewhere that it would not make sense for me to run.”

“How do _you_ have enemies?”

Julian smiled sadly. “We were not all of us dancers,” he murmured.

Shannon looked again around the room, at Garak, Parmak, Julian, Miagu. “I take it this needs to be a decision made sooner rather than later.”

“Time is of the essence,” Garak responded.

“That will mess with the healing, though, won’t it?”

Parmak stepped forward. “Dr.—Julian and I can tell you what care to do for post-operative healing and some of the exercises to do for binocular processing, but yes, it will lessen the effect. Provided you are able to do what we tell you, you will likely regain some but not all of the sight in that eye.”

“Do you have a number?”

Parmak looked at Julian, a silent conversation between them until Julian nodded and tilted his head in thought. “With optimal wound care and basic physical therapy done regularly, you should regain 70% of your sight. It will be a little like having a cataract in one eye. If you don’t care for the wound or don’t do the physical therapy exercises, the number goes down.”

Shannon looked back at Tir. “You willing to help me bandage up my eye and relearn how to see while we’re busy being fugitives at large in the galaxy?”

Tir grinned. “Happily.”

She took a deep breath. “Then off we go. Miagu,” she shifted, her tone grave. “I—I have so much that I’m still realizing, and you and I have so much to talk about because you need—you need to know…This is going to be a long, hard road, but since I have to walk it, I want to walk it with you—and damn the people in my head that are telling me I shouldn’t want that. They’re going to be around for a while, and so I’m probably going to be doing some stupid things for a while.” She glanced quickly at Julian and back to Tir. “But call me out on it and we’ll work through it together. Like I’ve been watching them do.” She let go of Julian’s hand to gesture to the Cardassians and Julian in a grand sweep. “That’s a lot bigger than making sure I keep my eye clean. Are you willing to be part of this, too?”

Tir smiled sadly. “Willing and able, _fenza_ ,” he said. “We will learn together, fight together, and survive together. Set your boundaries and we will both hold them. We can do this, my love.”

Shannon searched his eyes a moment and nodded, turning to Garak and Parmak. “So, resourceful Garak, what happens next?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Did I write a whole map of the previous Tir hosts just to know how Jiria would work? Why yes, yes I did. (If you're curious, they are Miagu; Golan, a poet and nurse; Minha, who helped Scotty develop transwarp beaming; Jiria, the only Tir to serve in Starfleet; and Jaram, who specialized in temporal mechanics and was, unrelatedly, an operatic bass.)
> 
> There's a fascinating vision simulator [here](https://lighthousefw.org/vision-simulator/), if you're curious what Shannon's sight will be like once she heals.


	27. Chapter 27

Time, truly, was of the essence, and Tir and Shannon spent much of it over the evening talking quietly with each other while Bashir, Parmak, and Garak sequestered themselves in Parmak’s office to begin the process of finding somewhere for them to go. Garak was continually surprised by Bashir’s involvement—it was he who knew where the Federation boundaries were softest, of course, but it was also he who thought of the best ways to get a small shuttle out into deeper space without tripping other territorial alarms, he who considered what would need to go into an alias so as to hide in plain sight, he who named the allies all over the quadrant who could quietly house refugees. It was decided that the Ferengi Alliance with its current marriage of acceptance and shrewdness would be a good place to get lost—with the additional bonus of a bit of unclaimed space between it and the Romulan Star Empire should Tir and Shannon need to find a planet to themselves. Garak contacted, arranged, and cajoled as much as he could from Parmak’s console, saving the truly delicate conversations for his even-more-secure home unit. He filed away the determination in Bashir’s face, the single-minded focus that pulled on concepts Garak had not realized Bashir had learned. Had his few brief run-ins with the Federation’s dark secret taught him so much—or had Bashir been paying much closer attention to Garak all these years than he had realized? While Garak was glad to see Bashir so engaged, its purpose concerned him; Bashir had asked Garak not to be like them, like the Organization, and Garak realized in listening to Bashir’s mind at work that the hope was for them both, that neither man become the people who had so wounded them.

“Councilor, is it safe enough to leave Tir and Shannon here for the night?” asked Parmak after several hours. “I would like for her to remain under medical observation while she can.”

Garak looked at him, blinking, having nearly forgotten he was there. “I think the night will be fine. They should leave tomorrow, however; now that I’ve found the connection, I hesitate to give them much time to realize we know.”

Parmak tilted his head in acknowledgement. “I will go tell them.” He left and Garak stood, hearing his joints crack with the resentment at so long a time unmoved. He crossed the office and closed the door behind himself.

“Kelas?” Garak said softly.

Parmak turned, startled by the sound of his first name even in the hushed atmosphere of the hospital at evening time. “Councilor?”

“Kelas, that—I cannot imagine it was comfortable for you to watch _both_ of us in that role.”

Parmak looked at the floor and swallowed. “Your skills are saving another, Elim,” he said. He looked up, defiance and strength in his eyes. “How could I be comfortable if you did not use the curve of the _ashko_ to cut away the tip that pierced us?”

Garak’s eyes flared dark at the mention of the blade held only by trained Order assassins, but he held his peace and nodded to the point. “I do not know what to say to him since he has apparently followed me into my craft,” he admitted, and Parmak loved him suddenly, fiercely, for what he knew the admission had cost.

“ _Ss’lei_ ,” Parmak half-whispered, “let us focus on saving one thing at a time, yes?”

Garak smiled briefly. “Still believing in the night, I see.”

Kelas grinned. “Ever and always,” he said, and he traced one hand down Garak’s face quickly before walking away to talk to his patient.

Garak returned to the office and found Bashir hunched over the screen, the Kardasi symbols almost blurring across the screen at his reading speed. “Doctor,” said Garak, and Bashir jumped.

“I’m sorry, Garak, I didn’t hear you come back in.”

“We have more to do, I realize, but we must do the next phase at home.”

Julian stood and stretched, his shirt coming up slightly at his waist, exposing the shiny skin of the burns across his stomach. Garak’s jaw clenched and Julian stopped, folding back into himself, shamefacedly pulling his shirt back down.

“I am sorry, Julian,” said Garak, reaching out with a placating hand. “I did not mean to make you uncomfortable.”

Julian shrugged, unconsciously still tugging at his hem.

“Julian,” murmured Garak, letting his hand rest lightly on Julian’s. Julian stilled but did not look him in the eye. “I am angered by them, not ashamed of you.”

Julian pulled away from the touch, crossing his arms over his chest tightly. “I know that keeping them is stupid, especially when we’re standing in a damned _hospital_.”

Garak let his hands fall to his sides, made his stance loose, unthreatening. “We have just spent several hours crossing and crisscrossing the various options of safe places in the universe for a pair of people under threat from the very organization that marked you so, Doctor. The danger is quite real, and whether I understand why you keep the scars or not, your need for them is also real.”

The pair stood in silence for a few minutes, both of them weary beyond measure. “Shall we join the doctor, Doctor?” Garak said at last. Bashir nodded and the pair left the room after Garak had cleared everything out of the computer’s system once more, caution covering every keystroke.

“And don’t worry, we will make sure you have all the correct paperwork to get where you’re going,” Parmak was saying as Garak and Bashir entered Shannon’s room. Shannon looked up at them, her head oddly shaped from the bandage wound around it.

“Julian,” she said, reaching out to him. He went and sat on her bed as Parmak stood to give him room. “Julian, this is happening so fast.”

“I know, Shannon,” he said, holding her hand against his cheek.

“Will I get to say good-bye to you?”

“I’ll make sure of it,” Julian promised, “but for now you really do need to sleep. Sleep is the best aid in healing, and since you’ll be doing a lot of that on your own I’d like for you to get a healthy start, at least.”

Shannon smiled at him. “Still the doctor,” she said fondly. “You know I’d’ve died without you, right? I don’t even know how many times you patched me back up before they pulled you too far down.”

Julian stiffened. “I’m sorry, Shannon, I—”

“ _Julian_ ,” she said. “Did you not hear the first part? You saved me—you saved me so many times, _so_ many times when you didn’t even know why I was hurt and you didn’t have any of the medication. And I wasn’t the only one. You were a healer when the other doctors were hurting us, and don’t you ever forget that.”

Julian closed his eyes as he leaned forward and kissed the back of Shannon’s hand. He pressed it to his forehead a moment and the room held still in the dim lights of evening rounds before Julian stood, releasing her. “Get some sleep, Shannon. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

With nods of farewell, the two Cardassians followed their human husband, marveling at this new information of a man staying true to his vocation against impossible odds. The ride home was silent and they parted with few words as Garak and Kelas went to their bedroom and Julian went to his, now alone.

It was Kelas who woke first to the frightened yells from down the hall, though Garak was right behind him as they ran to Julian’s room. Julian was thrashing about, obviously caught in a nightmare, his screaming punctuated by sobs. Silently the pair agreed that Garak would be the one to wake him as Kelas went to the kitchen to get both water and tea. Garak climbed into the bed, grabbing hold of Julian’s flailing limbs, interlocking their fingers, calling his name, and at last Julian woke, drenched in sweat and tears. He looked wildly around the room. “Where are you taking her?” he demanded. “She didn’t do anything wrong, it was me—I was the one who tried to turn off the speakers, don’t take her, don’t take—”

“Julian!” Garak said. “Julian, you are on Prime. I am here; Elim, Elim is here.”

Julian blinked, swallowed. “Elim?”

Garak let go of Julian’s hands. “Julian, are you with me?”

"Elim, I—” Julian looked down at himself, looked around at the room, pulled at his shirt sticking to him, patted the blanket twisted around his legs. He peered back up at Garak, almost comically shortsighted in the darkness. “Elim, is that really you?” 

Garak got up and turned the lights on low before returning to the bed. “Julian, I am here. It is really me.”

Julian ran a hand over his face, through his hair, holding on to his shoulder. “Right. Shannon’s at the hospital. I’m at home. With you.”

“Yes, Julian.”

A long exhale hissed out of the human. “I woke you up.”

Garak pursed his lips. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry.”

“I am not.”

Unwinding himself from the blankets, Julian swung his legs over the side of the bed opposite Garak. “Guess I should go take a shower.”

“Kelas is making tea, I believe, so you are welcome to join us when you are ready.”

Julian looked back over his shoulder. “I woke Kelas, too? God, I must have been really shouting.”

“We are glad you are unharmed, Julian. Go, rinse off. We will be in the kitchen.” Garak waited until Julian rose unsteadily to his feet and padded off to the shower before stripping the blanket and remaking the bed. 

“The Center?” Kelas asked as Garak entered the kitchen, placing a cup of tea on the table at Garak’s usual place. 

Garak sighed as he slid into the chair. “Yes. I do not know whether it was a memory or a fabrication, but I believe Julian tampered with one of the devices and the guards punished another prisoner instead of him. He was insisting on ‘her’ not being the one at fault.”

“You think he was talking about Shannon?”

Garak shrugged. “There were several women on the patient list, but it is likely.”

Kelas sat with his own mug of tea. “I did not realize how much he was doing there to keep the other patients going,” he said. “Did you?”

“He has not spoken of it in detail to me, no,” said Garak, “but I am unsurprised. Julian has always been one to rush to another’s defense, especially if there is a physical ailment involved that he can at all help.”

Kelas held his mug close, welcoming the warmth against his _ChUla_. “I wish he could see that,” he said. “I wish he could see how tremendously brave, and good, he is.”

“As do I, Kelas,” said Garak wearily. “It has been a rather potent blind spot the entire time I have known him, however.”

The pair looked expectantly at the archway as Julian approached them, his pajamas new and his hair still damp. Kelas got up to pour a cup of tea and Julian hesitantly sat. “I’m sorry, Kelas,” he said when Kelas set the cup down in front of him.

“For what?”

“For waking you. This is not the day for any of us to be running on less sleep.”

Kelas sat with a sigh. “I am glad you are unhurt.”

Julian smiled briefly. “Garak said much the same.”

“We both are glad,” said Kelas. The three sat in silence, sipping, for a few minutes, the quiet of the winter outside holding them close together.

“I—this is the first night I’ve slept alone since the hospital,” Julian said finally, staring down at his cup. “I didn’t think that would mean so much, but it does.”

“Having a companion is a good way to stave off some of the fears of the night,” said Garak cautiously. 

“But I haven’t told you how wretchedly I betrayed you in that,” answered Julian, and Kelas inhaled sharply. 

“Julian—”

“He deserves to know, Kelas.”

Kelas’ pained look brought a worried one to Garak’s face. “Julian?” Garak asked.

“A few days ago—was it a few days ago? Before Kelas reset my arm. I kissed Shannon, Garak.”

Garak stared at him a moment. “And?”

“Well,” said Julian, shifting awkwardly, “I mean, there was a lot of, I guess, there was quite a bit of touching going on—”

“No, Julian, you misunderstand me. I meant to ask what you wanted me to do with this information.”

Julian gaped at him. “What do you mean? You—you get angry at me. You tell me that I’ve betrayed you, that you’ve been waiting all this time and here I am making out with a human under your roof—”

“It is also your roof,” Garak interrupted. He clicked his fingers against his cup in thought. “Has this been a recurring act?”

“What? No, no; it was the one time.”

“What caused it?”

“She—she was mad at Tir because he had wanted to take her to Trill and she kissed me but I had _just_ been on the couch with the two of you, had just been unable to—”

“Julian,” said Garak gently, so gently that Julian finally looked him in the eye. The love in the blue made him look away again and Garak reached out, slowly, catching Julian’s chin to turn his face back. “Julian, it sounds as though you did not start the interaction, only responded. Do _you_ feel have you betrayed me?”

“No, Elim, no, I swear, I—” Julian cut himself off, surprised. “I didn’t mean to, anyway.”

Garak smiled, letting go and holding out his hand. Julian looked at it, at him, and back at it. Hesitantly, Julian took it in his own, the grip slightly awkward over the table. “What did you need from me in telling me this?”

“I—I need you to know that I didn’t mean to but that I screwed up; I screwed up terribly, Garak. I—I need to know I…I am forgiven.”

Garak squeezed the hand in his, obviously considering his answer carefully. “Has Kelas forgiven you?”

Julian nodded.

“And I forgive you, for whatever it is that you did.”

“Whatever—” The memory clicked in Julian’s mind and he looked down at their hands and back up to Garak’s face. “Th—thank you, Garak,” he said, tears beginning to gather in his eyes as he remembered the response, “that is most kind.”

“Julian,” said Kelas after a few moments, understanding that some ritual had passed between them that he didn’t need to know in full, “I ask this with absolutely no expectation or pressure at all. Do you hear that?”

Julian let go of Garak’s hand and turned back to Kelas. “I do,” he said uncertainly.

“Would it be helpful to have one of us stay with you tonight?”

Julian breathed deeply. “I—I honestly don’t know,” he said. He pondered for a moment. “Actually—Kelas, the way we’ve been sitting together on the couch? Can we try that?”

Kelas nodded. “I think that would be lovely.”

“It won’t mess with your back too much?”

Kelas smiled. “My dear young man, are you calling me old?”

A small grin tugged at Julian’s lips. “I would never,” he said. The grin faded. “But if—if something happens—”

“I will let go as soon as I realize it,” Kelas reassured him. “Don’t forget, dear one, that we have all three of us fought our minds in the night before; I am aware of how to get out of reach of another’s limbs.”

Julian nodded to himself, squaring his shoulders at the thought. “Okay. Okay, then.” He drank the last of his tea and stood. “Then let’s do this.”

“You are sure?”

“Kelas, I am sure that if I go back to sleep alone we’ll keep repeating this and I don’t know about you, but I don’t really want that much tea. I’ll take my chances if you’re willing to do so, as well.”

Kelas tilted his head as he stood. “I am, indeed.”

“Garak—” said Julian, and Garak held up a hand.

“You know that you can handle one, and we know that you can handle one, and one is all you shall get,” he said. “I am not offended.”

“Will you be all right?”

“Doctor,” Garak chided gently, “I will be fine.”

As Garak stood to put the cups in the sink to wash, Julian reached out and lightly encircled his wrist. Garak stopped, looking at Julian questioningly, and Kelas slipped out to gather blankets. “My dear?” Garak asked.

“She was what they wanted me to want,” Julian said, rubbing his thumb over the top of Garak’s wrist, “and for the briefest of seconds I did want her.”

“But?”

“But she isn’t you, and I may want her but I love you.”

Garak smiled at him. “And I love you, my Julian.” He turned fully toward Julian and held his free hand just over the place where he knew the burn scars stretched across the human’s stomach, not touching, hovering. “As you are, however that may be, in its entirety.”

Pain and sorrow and disgust and hope warred in Julian’s hazel eyes until Julian stepped forward, allowing Garak’s hand to rest on his shirt-clad stomach. Garak could feel the trembling muscle underneath his palm and waited, letting Julian adjust, letting Julian make the choice, as Julian leaned forward and Garak met him halfway, receiving the gentlest kiss on the corner of his lips before Julian turned away to join Kelas on the couch.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There aren’t any canon Cardassian blades that I found (lots of phaser/disrupter weapons), so I’m inventing the _ashko_ , a hand-held blade about 4–5” long. It’s a little like an Arabic dagger because it curves (toward oneself, not away, when holding it) and is meant to be sharp AF and carried in a sheath/pocket at the side of one’s body, handle down. The whole thing is flat so that it can be stored in clothing without being noticeable and the really good ones have a handle that’s teardrop-shaped, meant to mimic the Cardassian _ChU’en_ and to keep your hand from sliding down the blade. It’s an assassin’s knife because it's hidden and good for close work, but anyone untrained in it would slice themselves open because they don't understand how to compensate for the curve. Parmak knows this very well, which is why he references that kind of knife and not another.


	28. Chapter 28

Garak woke in the morning sun curling through the bedroom window and stretched into the space beside him, his mind jolting back into place at the absence of Kelas. He dressed quickly, padding out to the living room with all the stealth he could muster, and felt his body relax at the sight of Julian cocooned in Kelas’ arms under a thick blanket, Kukalaka clutched against him. The slighter man rose and fell gently with Kelas’ deep breaths beneath him and Garak memorized the scene, drinking in the light stealing across the floor to grasp at the blanket’s fringes trailing over the couch’s edge. Both Julian and Kelas looked so content, rested, and _beautiful_.

_I will hope in the day_ , he heard himself say, and the hope swelled painfully in his chest, compressing his organs, squeezing his lungs with its ferocity of _being_ in the face of such an image.

Under his scrutiny, Kelas blinked himself awake, catching himself before disturbing the man in his arms. He looked around the room and caught Garak’s eye, grinning brilliantly at him and receiving Garak’s wholehearted beam in return. Garak indicated that he was going to the kitchen and Kelas nodded, snuggling gently closer to his beloved. It was fascinating that Garak, who had waited so long in so many ways, could not find it in himself to be jealous; Julian was here, and healing, and that was enough. 

And if Garak forgot to chide himself for being sentimental as he began breakfast preparations, perhaps that was not the worst thing.

In the living room, Kelas laid his cheek against the fluffy human hair brushing his jawridge. He breathed in Julian’s scent: the tang of antiseptics, the taste of mint, the slight overlay of daylilies mixed with something undeniably alien, something human. The past months melted away under the heat of this human curled against him trustingly, and Kelas thanked the gods for this moment of proof that Julian, wonderful Julian was still here, alive, working toward wholeness.

Julian stirred and Kelas let his arms be as loose as possible. Julian’s long fingers kneaded Kukalaka’s worn fur and Kelas waited, wanting him to come back to wakefulness at his own pace. He felt the moment Julian stiffened against him and loosened his arms still further, his hands just barely resting on Julian’s shoulder.

“Kelas?” Julian said uncertainly.

“Good morning, my love,” Kelas said, pouring all the warmth he felt into his voice.

“Good morning, Kelas,” replied Julian, his body almost falling back at the release of tension, the relief in his own tone. He sat up quickly and Kelas let him go. “I wasn’t crushing you, was I?” he asked, concern knitting his brow together.

Kelas smiled, holding in his laughter at the idea of the gangly human being heavy enough to crush. “No, Julian, you were not. I was quite comfortable.”

Julian ducked his head bashfully. “So was I.”

Garak entered. “There’s tea, if you’d like it.”

Julian got up, carefully not twisting himself further in the blanket. “Hullo, Elim,” he said, winding the blanket around himself like a toga. “That’s to make sure you get up,” he said back to Kelas at the whine over the loss of warmth.

“Says the human who thinks winter is a fine temperature,” grumbled Kelas as he stretched and stood.

Julian held the blanket in one fist like a train, using his other hand to keep it wrapped around his chest, and shuffled over to Garak. “It’s not one of your creations, but it’ll do,” he said, jutting out one hip in a mock pose.

Garak laughed, full and honest. “My dear doctor, I do hope you’re not planning on actually going anywhere in that for I fear it will not, in fact, do at all.”

Holding a hand to his heart in mock woundedness, Julian pouted. “Such smears against good fashion,” he lamented, “the man surely doesn’t know a good thing when he sees one.”

Garak swallowed his reply, the light banter suddenly uncertain for him as the boundaries became too blurred, the body and mind in front of him still so achingly fragile. “I see I shall have to turn over my tailoring kit to you and your cutting-edge fashions, then,” he quipped instead, steadfastly ignoring the look Kelas gave him from behind Julian’s back.

“My art shall remain unappreciated,” Julian said with a dramatic sigh, “but I persevere.”

“And get dressed in actual clothes, I’d hope,” said Garak.

With a smile, Julian stepped forward and kissed him on the cheek. “If I must.” He picked up his “train” again and, nose in the air, strutted off to his room.

“Well,” said Garak in a low voice.

“Indeed,” replied Kelas.

“I can only hope this holds through the farewell to Shannon.”

Kelas sighed fondly and crossed to Garak, pulling him into an embrace. “Ah, Elim, I thought you believed in the day?”

Garak chuckled against Kelas’ hair. “It does not mean I do not recognize night is coming.”

“Get to work with you. We will meet you at the hospital when you are finished.” Kelas pushed him playfully toward the door. Garak reached out and cupped Kelas’ jaw in his hand, kissing him hungrily. Kelas’ hands came up around Garak’s shoulders, pulling the two together, until Garak pulled back for air and rested their _ChUfas_ together. “Well,” said Kelas, a little breathless. “I should let you sleep alone more often.”

Garak smiled and kissed him again, lightly. “What a terrible thought,” he said, and left for the day, Kelas grinning after him.

***

The day was light, hopeful, full of Kelas and Julian finishing what they could of the travel plans for Shannon and Tir from their end while Garak worked during his breaks between meetings on the necessities only he could do. The three of them felt like a team and Kelas focused on that, pushing away his knowledge of the skills Garak brought to bear, the hatred that drove Julian beneath his expansive smile. It felt good to work in tandem again, each supporting the other to help, to heal, to save. They each, in their own ways, had dedicated their lives to protection of something, after all.

The evening came and Kelas and Julian climbed into the skimmer to head to the hospital, Kelas keeping an eye on Julian’s mood. He remained cheerful, speaking of Rom’s generosity and whether Leeta would like Shannon if they should meet, wondering what life would be like in the constantly bustling worlds of the Alliance. Kelas let himself relax, just a little bit.

“I slept most of the day, I think,” said Shannon as Parmak and Bashir both looked over her vitals. Bashir cleaned his hands and sat next to her, carefully unwinding the bandage, the kinks of black hair springing back out in relief at their freedom. Parmak was ready with a patch. “An eyepatch, really?” said Shannon as she spotted it in his hand. “I’m a pirate now?”

Parmak looked confused. “What is a ‘pirate’?”

Julian smiled. “It’s an old Earth stereotype,” he said. “Pirates were people who would take over ships illegally on the high seas hundreds of years ago and a lot of them were depicted in later history as wearing eyepatches.”

“Do I get a parrot?” Shannon asked. She and Julian only laughed at Parmak’s look of pure bewilderment.

Julian took the patch and, after some tests of what sight was beginning to return, helped Shannon put it on. “Don’t simply take this off and hope for the best,” he said sternly in his Dr. Bashir voice. “It’s to make sure your brain doesn’t get overwhelmed while you get used to binocular vision again and train your eye muscles to follow things correctly.”

“Sir yes sir,” said Shannon with a jaunty salute, and Tir took her hand gently. 

“Tell us what we need to do,” he said, and Shannon squeezed their fingers together in acknowledgement.

Bashir and Parmak went through the list of exercises, hygiene, and warnings. Tir and Shannon listened attentively, neither writing anything down. “I’ll remember,” said Tir when Bashir asked if he would like to. “It’s—it’s best not to have anything we need in writing.”

Garak arrived and they helped Shannon through the discharge process, each piece of paperwork pointing toward her return to the Garak residence in case anyone should ask. Even the hospital staff knew no different, and when the five of them sorted themselves into the two separate skimmers, both made sure to head back to the house to support the idea.

In the front yard, Garak pulled a transporter control out of a hidden pocket. “Gather close,” he said, and the five of them disappeared in a sparkle of light, reappearing next to a shuttle in a location no one but Garak knew.

Shannon turned to Kelas first. “Doctor,” she said, “how can I thank you for giving me back my eyes?”

“Take care of them,” he said modestly. She nodded in agreement and held up one hand. Parmak placed his grey hand against her brown skin in Cardassian affection until Shannon pulled away, standing in front of Garak.

“You really are as complex as he said,” she mused.

“I will take that as a compliment,” Garak replied.

“I may even have meant it as one,” she said, and bit her lip. “May—may I hug you?”

Garak opened his arms to her. “I would like that, my dear.” She folded into his embrace, whispering something in his ear. His eyeridges raised as she pulled back and nodded at him. He blinked. “Farewell, Shannon,” he said, and she smiled as she moved toward Julian.

“I’m going to miss you,” Julian said, his whole body suddenly awkward.

"We will see each other again,” Shannon said, and Julian nodded at the ground. “Hey,” said Shannon, holding him by the shoulders. “We _will_. I love you, Julian Bashir, because you taught me that forgiveness requires work and you reminded me that love is a whole lot more complicated and beautiful and worth fighting for than they had gotten me to believe. You fight for that, do you hear me?” She waited until he looked her in the eye, until he nodded with conviction. He pulled her close to him, the two humans twining into each other hard. “We will beat them, Julian,” she said into his shoulder. “We have already beaten them.”

He squeezed her once more in answer and she let him go, readjusting her eyepatch as she stepped back.

“We’ll be in touch, somehow,” Tir said.

“We have shared goals,” said Garak. “I will help as I can.”

“I will, too,” said Julian.

“And I,” said Kelas.

“Well then,” said Shannon. “Off on an adventure?” She reached out a hand to Tir and he took it.

“An adventure,” he said, and they climbed into the shuttle.

Garak didn’t transport the three of them, at Julian’s request, until he could no longer see the shuttle in the sky at all.

***

The three of them found a new rhythm over the next octal as Julian slept in Kelas’ arms on the couch and they all shared breakfast and dinner together. After a few days, Kelas went back to working half-days at the hospital and Julian began to wonder if he could do the same. There were still nights that Julian woke panting, frightened, and still moments where he flinched from a thing startling him, but there was a sense of hope, of promise, of healing. Julian began to speak, in the later hours of the night just before bed, of his experience, unravelling the barbed thread of memory from inside him. Kelas and Garak listened, and took turns holding him against the pain of it, and there was love.

Nine days after Shannon and Tir had left, Julian wandered through the house absently cleaning, wanting to surprise his husbands with the gesture when they returned from work, letting himself live into the space fully, grieve the places Shannon no longer was, remember all the ways he and Garak and Kelas had made this place home. As he was stripping the bed in the office, allowing himself to admit that he would not feel comfortable returning to it, the comm unit in the corner chimed. Thinking perhaps Kelas had a note before he headed home soon, Julian opened the channel without checking the sender.

“Jules,” said Richard Bashir, his stern face filling the screen and almost blocking out Amsha’s fluttering figure behind him, “what the hell do you think you’re doing on Cardassia Prime?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You wanted Bashirs, you get Bashirs. It will not be pleasant.


	29. Chapter 29

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> A gentle word of warning: this chapter is Narcissistic Richard Bashir on parade, which stomps hard on Traumatized Julian Bashir. It was not fun to write and I imagine it won't be terrifically fun to read, but the Bashirs are very important to Julian's processing. Also, remember the Suicide Attempt tag? Here it is.  
> Grab your Kukalaka, breathe deeply, and remember that I do not write hurt without comfort. I promise.

Julian froze, every nerve in his body suddenly screaming, every muscle strung taut. “Father?”

"You can probably imagine my consternation when I call for the three-month check-in on your wellbeing at the Center and can’t connect, so I go digging only to find out _the ship was destroyed_ and there was no record of what happened, whether you had survived. Do you have any idea the pain you caused your mother?”

“Jules, honey, we were so worried,” said Amsha over her husband’s shoulder.

Julian could feel his throat constrict, could feel the words sticking, surely cutting through the vulnerably stretched skin. “You—you called…wait,” he said, shaking his head. “Three-month check-in. You—you mean you knew? You _knew_ what was going on?”

“I knew the general things,” said Richard. “After all, I was paying them to care for you. I wanted to be sure they were actually caring for you.”

“You mean you wanted to make sure your investment was cared for,” said Julian, his voice suddenly flat and cold as the realization washed through him. “And what were the ‘general things’ you knew?”

“That you had therapy and there were cutting-edge treatments for you and this…affliction."

"Cutting-edge treatments?” said Julian, feeling a rising level of hysteria in his voice. “Did you know what these ‘treatments’ were, Father?”

“I gather there was some reassociation—”

“They tortured me!” Julian yelled. “They burned me, they drugged me, they—God, they nearly killed me.”

“What?” Amsha said in surprise. “No, Jules, they were a well-vetted organization meant to help people like you—”

“People like me?” interrupted Julian. “You mean xenophiles? Alien fuckers?”

“Don’t you dare use that kind of language with your mother,” Richard cut in, his body rigid.

“What the hell were you thinking, _kidnapping_ me and sending me to that—that place?”

“I am your father, boy, and you will remember it when you speak to me.” Richard’s anger filled the screen and Julian hated that he felt himself becoming small before it, that he could not stop the fear roiling sick in his stomach, _not enough, not grateful enough, not smart enough, not good enough_.

“Richard, please,” said Amsha, laying a hand on his arm. “Jules, we were so worried about you with that alien and his violence.”

“ _His_ violence?” Julian bit out. “Are you serious?”

“We wanted you to be safe.”

“And different. Again. You wanted me to be different again, because you are always trying to mold me to what you want.”

“Jules, now, listen here,” said Richard. “You made it very difficult to care for you and so we helped get you out of that situation into a place better suited to your talents.”

“You sidestepped asking my consent at all—”

“You clearly were not in a frame of mind to make your own decisions—”

“—and you left me in a _hellhole_ to be _tortured_ —”

“—and I don’t know what I thought I would get from you after I had to go through so many channels to track you down in the first place and make sure you were all right, I would think some gratitude would at least be part of your reaction since you didn’t see fit to let us know you survived whatever happened in the first place—”

“Hang on,” said Julian, another part of his brain clicking into place, slowed by the terror pulling him down into that mercury voice that suffocated with a laughing grin. “How _did_ you get this number?”

Richard straightened. “As an entrepreneur, I have a great many important contacts who were willing to help me connect to my only son.”

“There’s—there’s only one human organization that would be able to break through the Cardassian security nets without alerting Garak…” Julian’s eyes went wide. “Father, you can’t—please tell me you haven’t gotten involved…” He couldn’t even finish the sentence, doubling over with the horror of it, dry heaving.

“Jules?” asked Amsha. “Jules, you dropped out of frame. What’s wrong?”

"Relax, Amsha, he probably just went to get something he’d forgotten again. I don’t know why they didn’t make your memory more reliable, you always seem distracted by things. You know, when I was working as the head librarian at the Archives in Berlin, my supervisor often commented on what a fine memory I had for connection points between subject matter. It was one of the things that came most naturally to me in that job, actually.”

“Julian?” came a voice from the front door, cutting into the fog consuming Julian as he convulsed on all fours, his fingers curling desperately into the carpet. “Julian, where are you?”

“Jules, who is that?”

Kelas came into the room and saw Julian on the floor. “Julian!” he exclaimed, dropping to join him, missing the open comm link entirely as he rubbed Julian’s back. “Julian, are you okay?”

“He should be, it was damned inconvenient to make this call work and then he drops out of frame and won’t even tell us what’s happening,” said Richard.

Even in his haze, Julian felt Kelas’ whole body go stiff beside him. Kelas stood, taking in the Bashirs on screen properly.

“Oh,” said Richard, “it’s you. God, I should have known he’d go straight back to an unhealthy situation. Boy never did understand what was best for him.”

Kelas swore quietly in Kardasi. “How on Prime did you get this line,” he said in Standard, his voice colder than Julian had ever heard it.

“Look, as I told Jules, I have connections of my own and I don’t need to ride his Starfleet coattails—not that he has those anymore after he threw away his career. You had such promise, Jules, and you chose to be a half-baked medic on a backwater planet.”

“His name is Julian,” said Kelas, and somewhere in Julian’s brain in a place beyond the blind panic he realized that it was a tone that reminded him of Garak, of the interrogator’s voice he had only heard from Garak a handful of times in their years of knowing each other. To hear that tone coming out of Kelas, the gentle doctor, was infinitely more terrifying than it would ever have been in Garak’s mouth.

“I named the boy, whatever he wants to call himself now,” answered Richard. “Is he even going to bother to come back and talk to us?”

“He should never have to talk to you again,” Kelas answered. “And in point of fact, he never will.”

“What kind of bollocks is that? I’m his father, I’ll talk to him if I damn well please.”

“You are the man who sent him to hell.”

“It was for his own good.”

At this, Julian’s hitched breathing became a low keen, a thin wail of desperation and pure, unrelenting fear.

“Richard Bashir,” said Parmak, allowing the force of his Cardassian features to come into play as his eyes darkened and his head tilted to let his ridges create shadows, his alienness on full display, “you and your wife will never, ever contact Julian, or me, or Garak again. I’m sure you’re aware that my husband and I are rather well connected to the government and not only am I going to ensure they lock you out of the communications net forever, I will alert our ever-increasing security net that if a shuttle containing either of you even approaches the boundaries of the Cardassian Union—not the orbit of Prime but the farthest reaches of our spatial territory in this quadrant—that they have full permission and encouragement to fire on you with every available weapon and to ensure there are no survivors. You are to be considered as dangerous a threat as the Breen or the Dominion and dealt with accordingly. There will never, ever be a connection between you and Dr. Bashir again save an unfortunate sharing of names. Do I make myself clear?”

Richard gaped at him, taking in the deadly quietness of his voice, the piercing glare, the shifting oddities of the multicolored scales. He recovered himself. “See here, you, I don’t think you know who you’re talking to—”

“I know exactly who I’m talking to,” said Parmak, and he grinned. The grin was feral, fierce, lacking anything resembling Kelas’ kindness, his tenderness, and Amsha involuntarily shrank back from it. “And I know that if I ever talk to you again, Richard Bashir, it will be to remind you of this promise: if I find myself in the same space as you, breathing the air of which you are not worthy, _I will kill you with my bare hands_. I did not spend three years in a labor camp without learning a few things, and as a doctor I do not have any problem ensuring that such a death will be as torturous and painful as it is possible to be for a human body.”

There was silence for a long moment as Julian shuddered at Parmak’s feet, weeping. Amsha was the one who moved first, grasping her husband’s shoulder and looking pleadingly at Parmak. “We only wanted the best for him,” she said. Parmak said nothing and she nodded in acceptance. “Take care of him,” she said.

"Better than you ever did,” Parmak replied.

She searched his fearsome face before swallowing and, reaching over Richard’s arm, cut the connection.

Kelas blew out a breath and dropped to his knees, reaching for Julian and stopping himself before he actually touched him. “Julian. Julian, they are gone. They’re gone and never coming back,” he said. “Julian, can you hear me?”

“It was the Section, I know it, they went to the Section, 31 knows where I am, they know, they’ll never stop, they never stop,” Julian said, his whole body shuddering with gasps and words and half-finished thoughts.

“Julian, Julian,” said Kelas. He put a hand lightly on Julian’s shoulder and Julian collapsed, openly sobbing on the floor. Kelas pulled his boneless body onto his lap, foregoing any kind of explanation in favor of rocking with Julian, murmuring reassurances, “I’m here, Julian, I’m here, you are not alone.” Julian shivered against him and time passed as Kelas sat with him, losing feeling in his legs and not caring as he held Julian tightly against the nightmares that walked in the daylight. After a while Julian’s shuddering sighs became quieter, worn out by the fear and anxiety. Kelas waited a few more minutes before trailing his fingers through Julian’s hair. “Julian?” he said.

“Need to clean up,” said Julian, his voice expressionless, scraped raw. He stood, not looking at Kelas, and left the room. 

Kelas unfolded his legs, wincing as the blood began to flow back at a normal rate, thinking about what to do to get Julian settled before contacting Garak. He stood slowly, testing his weight on his needled legs, checking that the comm unit was indeed shut off from the call. He made his way into the living room, wondering about whether to make tea.

Julian stood with a disrupter in his hand, the box behind the bookshelf where Garak always kept it gaping open.

“You weren’t supposed to come in yet,” Julian whispered hoarsely. “But you know, don’t you? You know it has to end this way if it’s going to end at all. I won’t let them come for you. I’m sorry, Dr. Parmak. I’m so sorry.” In one swift motion, he pushed the disrupter into the base of his jaw and pulled the trigger.


	30. Chapter 30

Kelas knew he screamed, but whether it was words or a name or simply an immeasurable noise, whether it was in Standard or Kardasi, he had no idea. He flew across the room, his brain lagging behind any sense of reality, any awareness of fact. He was right next to Julian before he realized Julian was unharmed.

“But it says it’s fully charged,” Julian said, staring blankly at the disrupter. Kelas almost collapsed with relief and reached out to take the weapon.

“No!” shouted Julian, pushing him away, re-aiming at himself, pulling the trigger again, again. “No, it has to work, it has to work this time, it _must_ work!” He threw the disrupter away and began tearing at himself, his blunt nails gouging streaks into his face, neck, and arms.

Kelas ran to the comm unit, slapping open a channel. “Computer, send message to Elim Garak for immediate receipt: Bashir Omega Delta 4717.”

The computer chirped an affirmative and Kelas rushed back to Julian, tackling him to the floor and holding him tightly as the human writhed and wept. Within five minutes he saw the telltale light of a transport beam in the front yard and Garak materialized, setting off at a dead sprint for the house.

“Julian?” Garak shouted as he burst through the door.

“Elim, get the medkit in the bedroom,” Kelas said, his voice brooking no opposition. Garak spared a glance for the pair on the floor and ran to the bedroom, reemerging with Kelas’ home kit. He set it next to Kelas and Kelas rummaged through, finding a vial and handing it to Garak, who filled the hypospray and handed it back. Wrestling the now-thrashing Julian in place with Garak’s help, Kelas pressed the hypospray to his neck and Julian crumpled into stillness as the sedative took hold.

“Kelas?”

Kelas let go his clutch of Julian and fell into Garak, the shock and pain catching up with him as he sobbed into Garak’s shoulder, dimly noting the repetition as Garak now was the one who rocked with him, speaking with soothing sounds in their shared tongue as he combed through Kelas’ hair until Kelas quieted.

“Kelas, what happened?”

“He tried to kill himself, Elim.” Garak stiffened under him and Kelas sat up, wiping his eyes. “But the disrupter was empty.”

Garak cleared his throat. “I—I had thought we would be past—”

“Elim, what did you do?”

“Shortly after Shannon and Julian came back here, I drained the weapons I knew Julian knew about.”

Kelas reached for the disrupter on the floor. “But it still shows it’s at full power.”

“I knew that taking it away would be too suspicious; if Julian wanted the weapon that badly, taking away the one he knew about would drive him to find one _I_ didn’t know about. But he’s smart enough to check if it’s just drained, so I altered the fuel cell monitor.”

Kelas looked at his husband in awe. “You thought of all that?”

Garak shrugged. “It seemed prudent at the time.”

“It certainly was,” said Kelas, his shoulders sagging with relief and his heart clenching again at the sight of Julian with a disrupter jammed against his chin.

“But I had thought it would no longer be needed. What changed, Kelas?”

Kelas swallowed and felt the hatred burn all the way down. “The Bashirs. His parents called.”

He watched a similar spark of hatred and rage flick through Garak’s eyes before he could school himself. “How did they make it through the communications net? Richard Bashir is many things, but a technological expert is not one of them.”

“Julian was panicking, but he said something about Section 31—that Section 31 knows he’s here. He—right before he pulled the trigger, he said that he wouldn’t let them come for us, and I don’t think he meant his parents.”

Garak’s face went completely blank.

“Elim, could it be true? Could that organization be helping people track down the survivors?"

Garak breathed deeply, his mind clearly sifting through a thousand pieces of information. “It would make some things make sense,” he said.

Kelas sat in the silence with him for a moment, checking on Julian’s breathing, continuing to try and manage the riot of emotions and reactions within himself.

“Kelas,” said Garak, “what do we do next? We can’t keep him sedated forever.”

“No,” agreed Kelas. “We will need to take him back to the hospital.”

“And the Bashirs—”

“I, ah,” hemmed Kelas, “I may have made the point of it being advisable that they never attempt contact again.”

Garak stared at Kelas, waiting.

Kelas scratched at his ridges absently, realized his hair’s tangled chaos, and pulled his braid over his shoulder to try and fix it. It was only as he was unwinding the white strands that he realized his hands were shaking, shaking so badly that he couldn’t properly manage the three segments.

“Kelas,” said Garak gently, reaching out and taking Kelas’ hands in his, “tell me. I will redo your hair.”

“I—I channeled you, Garak,” said Kelas in a half-whisper. “I channeled everything about you that had ever terrified me: the tone of voice, the distant expression, the coldness, the absolutely certainty of being obeyed. And I told them that if they ever tried to come into Cardassian space, I would have our defense grid primed to shoot without any question at all.”

Garak let out a breath so long it seemed he would collapse from it, his chest empty.

“I’m so sorry, Elim, I didn’t know what else—”

“You tried to manage the curve of the _ashko_ ,” said Garak, sorrow and pride in equally heavy measure in his voice. “If it is to be used, I am glad to see it in this way.”

Kelas put one shaking hand against Garak’s cheek. “I was so _angry_ , Elim. I was _furious_ , and I—I _hated_. I hated them, and I hated how blind they were; Julian was sobbing on the floor when I came in and his father was upset that he was out of frame. What kind of a father is _like_ that?”

Garak turned his head slightly to brush his lips over Kelas’ palm. “Many fathers are like that, my kind one.”

Kelas closed his eyes. “And he said—his father, he said that the Center was for his own good. Julian heard that, Elim. He heard it, and the shockwave it sent through him was the last thing I could take. I…I wish I could say that I’m sorry for what I said, but I’m only sorry that I said it intending to inflict as much fear and pain as I could, to make them hurt even half as much as I could see Julian hurting in front of me.”

“Ah, my Kelas,” said Garak, pulling on the hand in his own until Kelas was wrapped in his arms, sitting between his legs. Garak held him close, his lips against the long white hair, letting Kelas sink into him. “This is why they train us for that blade,” he said. “You will cut yourself if you do not know how to pull it back out properly.”

“I don’t know if I can pull him back from this, Elim,” said Kelas, beginning to weep in Garak’s arms. “He tried again—when it didn’t fire, he tried so many more times before I could take it from him.”

“You did well to call me, _ss’lei_ ,” said Garak. “You did well all around, my brave Kelas, to care for our beloved. You fought for his safety. Do you realize that?” He tilted Kelas’ chin so that their eyes met. “You have ensured his safety from unsafe people. I know that it pains you to have done so in the manner you did, but it worked. And then you saved him again from himself. _s’h’iosr’halin_ , you have done credit to your profession and your love. I am here, my enjoined, I am here.”

And Kelas finally allowed himself to be swept away on the voice that reassured him he was not alone, crying into Garak’s tunic as Julian’s still form lay at their feet.

***

Kelas did not know how long he let Garak wrap him in the cocoon of safety, knowing only that he was exhausted and had so much yet to do. “Elim?” he asked, his throat raw.

“Mmm?” answered Garak, sounding almost as though Kelas had roused him from some distant part of his mind.

“I don’t want to try to load him into the skimmer and I don’t feel comfortable waking him. Do you think we can simply carry him outside and have the hospital beam him over as an emergency case?”

“That is your call, Doctor,” said Garak, loosening his hold and helping Kelas sit up slightly so he could unwind and redo the braid. 

Kelas thought while Garak tamed his hair. “I think we can put him back in the same area we set up when he first got back,” he mused, “so that will limit stimuli. Without Shannon here, I’m not sure what to do to balance the amount of Cardassians.”

Garak’s hands stilled. “There are other humans.”

"Well, there are plenty of humans in the galaxy, but I think someone with whom he feels comfortable would be the most helpful.”

“The chief.”

“What?”

“His friend, Chief O’Brien. If we asked him to come, he would come.”

Kelas turned so he could look at Garak. “Do you think so? That’s an awfully long way.”

Garak’s half-smile was both rueful and fond. “I have it on good authority that Mr. O’Brien ‘has got Julian’s back’ if such a thing should ever be needed.”

“Why does it matter if he is behind Julian?” asked Kelas, the Standard phrase sounding harsh and strange in the middle of the Kardasi.

Garak shook his head. “It means to be supportive of someone, to be ready to be present when things go awry as a witness and fellow fighter. If you contact the hospital, I will contact Mr. O’Brien.”

“You should tell your office where you are. I know they’re aware of the codes you set up for the three of us, but we’ve never had to use them before.”

With a grimace, Garak finished Kelas’ smoothed braid and hugged him close, kissing him on the shoulder. “I had hoped we never would,” he said. “It’s almost enough to make me rethink the barrier I have preventing anyone from transporting in or out of the house.”

“It worked well enough for you to be in the yard,” Kelas said reassuringly. “I see now that not all of your caution is unmerited. Gods, Elim,” he sighed, his weariness in every line of him, “is this the kind of life the two of you have led?”

Garak kissed him on the jaw and moved to stand. “None of us have easy pasts, Kelas,” he said. “Subterfuge may be foreign to you, but that kind of instantaneous fear isn’t.”

“No,” said Kelas as he accepted Garak’s hand to pull him up. “No, it is not.”

“Call the hospital. I’ll gather whatever Julian may need, then I’ll call the chief and you and I can get Julian outside. You should transport with him and I’ll follow in the skimmer; it is best we save the energy as much as possible.”

“Yes, Councilor,” said Kelas with the ghost of a smile, and he turned to comm his unit and let them know of this new expectation.

Garak knelt by Julian’s side, tracking his fingertips over the jaw lightly patterned with black and grey stubble. “Oh, my dear doctor,” he murmured. “How much both of us have tried to outrun the ones who made us, bleeding every time they catch up.” He leaned over to place his _ChUfa_ against Julian’s smooth, human forehead. “ _nu ka zIra’I, ss’lei_. Do not leave me to fight them without you.” He laid a soft kiss on Julian’s temple and stood, going into the office to pack for a stay whose duration he could not begin to measure.

***

The first day, Garak took up his now sickeningly familiar post in a chair by Julian’s bedside, watching the various monitors chirp contentedly to themselves. He tried to send Kelas home at nightfall but Kelas said that being alone in the house was worse than being helpless in the hospital. So Garak tucked Kelas into the empty patient bed and watched over them both, his mind filing, planning, connecting, scheming. In the morning Kelas asked how much time Garak had told the office he would be taking; Garak shrugged and Kelas dropped the matter. Without anything else to do, Kelas went to his office, burying himself in backlogged paperwork, drowning in the comforting monotony of administration. Garak stayed, steadfastly refusing even to himself to call the thrumming pleading in his veins a prayer.

By the end of the second day, Kelas and the nurses agreed that there was nothing physically wrong with Julian—he simply did not want to wake. All sedatives had long since cycled out of his system. His mind had turned off, and nothing they did chemically could bring it back without injury. Garak took this information in stride and settled in, wryly remembering how many times he had tried to get Julian to do something before he was ready and how disastrous it had always turned out to be.

It was four days after the communication with the Bashirs that Julian woke. Garak approached him cautiously, remembering the fear and hatred of another waking months ago. “Julian, do you know where you are?”

Julian sighed. “Back in the hospital,” he croaked, his voice strange from disuse. “I had rather thought to be spending more time standing around the beds in my career than in them.”

Garak would have delighted at the humor had there not been such sarcastic cynicism drenching the observation. “Do you know why you’re in the hospital again, Julian?”

A tear tracked out of Julian’s eyes that were fixed on the ceiling. “Because I failed at saving you, again.”

“Oh, Julian,” said Garak, swallowing down the desire to correct him, to convince him, to rewrite the terrible narratives etched into him. “I am glad you failed; it is not saving me if I have to live without you.”

Julian turned his head to look at Garak. “None of us are safe. You know that, right? We delayed the inevitable with Shannon, and I’m glad—I’m glad we could buy her the time to be with Tir, to remember that. And I’m glad to have had this time to remember just how much I still love you, Elim Garak, and how much I love Kelas. I can’t carve that out of myself even though I tried; I tried so hard to be what they wanted me to be so that they would forget about you, so that they would not force you to be what you are not, but it couldn’t last. They’ll take me back and they’re right to do so because I am broken, Garak. I’m broken in a way none of us can fix and I’m only going to break you with me, to make you sick like me, and I am so sorry that I failed at this but please; I love you too much to pull you down with me. Just let me die this time, Elim. They will stop with me.”

Uncaring for the tears running down his ridges, Garak laid a soft hand on Julian’s hair, smoothing the wildness back a little. “No, Julian. I do not know many things, but I know they will not stop. They will never stop, and I will not sacrifice you even to make them pause.”

Julian stared at him, seemingly memorizing him. “Then we are stalemated, my love. Because I will only give them myself when they come for us. It has been so good, _ss’lei_. It will have to have been enough.”

He turned over and his breathing slowed, slowed, and Garak knew that he was pushing himself back into the darkness and nothing at all could force him out if he did not see a different world than they had branded into him.

Leaving a note for Kelas to sit with the catatonic human, Garak left to walk until he could no longer feel the splinters of his heart breaking apart into smaller and smaller pieces of helplessness.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _s’h’iosr’halin_ is "dear doctor," which is usually a term of endearment for Julian but I think Garak would use it occasionally with Parmak.
> 
> Stay with me, Reader, stay with me. We are almost to the end now and I still promise it is a good ending.


	31. Chapter 31

It had been nearly five years since the Dominion bombardment of Garak’s beloved planet, five years of long and difficult work. The cityscape around him in the gathering twilight no longer looked like the ravaged ruins where death lurked easily, but it was still a far cry from the Cardassia Garak remembered. It was likely it would never look like that again, and it depended on the day whether Garak was glad of it.

He shivered slightly in the winter chill, letting its sensation drag him back to the cold corridors of Deep Space Nine. Each memory had, over time, become infused with Julian—the Replimat that pulled them closer and closer in conversations of a thousand layers, the shop where Julian’s laughing eyes would watch him work on the latest holosuite costume, the quarters where Julian watched over him as he lay dying and refused to let him go. He had spent every year wishing for home, his first love, completely missing the home that was right in front of him. What a waste.

Garak shook himself and stuffed his hands into the pockets of his long coat, the habitual presence of the flat _ashko_ blade curved into the lining a strange reminder now of Kelas and his sorrow. _I channeled you_ , Garak remembered, and he wished that such an admission hurt more. He wished that he could be horrified to have been such an influence, but instead he found himself grateful that it had been Kelas who had intercepted the call, Kelas who did not know how to pull an actual _ashko_ blade and make sure his own hands remained clean, Kelas who did not blow up ships in his rage and grief. Garak had no doubt that Kelas had been fearsome in his own right, but had it been Garak there would have been no threat. There would have been action.

And he knew, somehow, that killing Julian’s parents would not fix the vacancy in Julian’s gaze.

Garak stopped, looking up at the moons rising over the changed skyline. He had loved this world, had died for her, had kept on living. It would always be first in his heart, he knew that—but in a hospital several kilometers behind him, the other pieces of his heart waited. _I channeled you_ , he heard, and he wondered to himself if it could work the other direction, if Kelas’ gentle patience could infuse him, if he could sit again by Julian’s bedside and love him while the light came back into his eyes. _Until Kelas’ gods come back for us_ , he remembered promising to Julian, swearing he would wait as long as was needed.

_What a strange thing, for a liar to become a man of his word._

He looked at the city again, at the moonlight stretching slow and sure as a warm _regnar_ over the rooftops, and turned around. He walked the roads long cleared of rubble, smelled the bite of Cardassian winter air instead of the cloying stench of death, saw homes and workplaces standing tall where once had been crumbling gaps. His city, his planet, his first love was healing.

It was time to be part of the healing for his other loves, beautiful as the moonlight spilling across his path.

***

Four more days passed. Julian awoke, but nothing more. He ate, slept, existed, as empty as when Garak had first sat with him on the ship. Garak did not try to push him back into being, remembering instead his conversations with Shannon in her first days. After Kelas insisted he sleep at their own home, Garak took up again the pattern of bringing a padd to read to the breathing body of Julian at the hospital during the day and holding the shivering body of Kelas at night while his memory surfaced again and again in dreams. Garak held himself to the moment right in front of him, refusing to think beyond it, unable to think beyond it.

Garak and Kelas were finishing dinner at home when a comm came through. Kelas went rigid and Garak laid a hand on his arm in silent reassurance when he went to answer it. He smiled at the caller’s name and ensured an extra layer of encryption before accepting.

“Garak?” came the Irish brogue as the call connected.

“Mr. O’Brien,” replied Garak in genuine pleasure. “I am so glad you answered the summons.”

“Yeah, well,” shrugged O’Brien. “Julian seemed pretty upset the last time we talked, so I was hoping to come out soon anyway. You just accelerated things. Is he okay?”

“Are you en route?” Garak asked, sidestepping the question.

“I’ve made it back to DS9,” O’Brien said, “so I should be able to find a ride out tomorrow. Is that enough time for you?”

“It will be a fine time,” Garak said. “If you send me the name of your transport, I’ll be sure to meet you and bring you straight to the hospital.”

“Garak, you said—you said he’d had some kind of breakdown, but nothing more than that,” O’Brien said, hesitating over the right words. “You made it sound pretty serious.”

Garak considered his reply. “It is, indeed, serious, Mr. O’Brien,” he said, trying to look as honest as he was actually being. “I would rather wait until you arrive to explain the severity, if you wouldn’t mind.”

“Still paranoid, eh?” O’Brien said.

Garak did not smile. “Give my greeting to the colonel while you’re on the station, if you would,” he said. “I will see you tomorrow.”

O’Brien eyed him suspiciously before nodding. “Yeah, all right, tomorrow. And I’ll tell Kira hey for you.”

Garak ended the call and returned to the kitchen, giving Kelas the good news, hoping that this was the right move for the one he could not save himself this time.

***

In the early afternoon of the following day, Garak left his post by Julian’s bedside and climbed into his skimmer, reassuring Parmak he would not deviate from the path between the hospital and the transport station. He didn’t have to wait long at the station, taking the opportunity to watch the comings and goings of a hub still far emptier than it had been before.

There would always be a before for Cardassians.

The strange mop of curly hair caught his eye among the sea of jet black and Garak stepped forward, winding his way through the crowd of Cardassians and the occasional alien to the alien he sought. “Professor O’Brien,” he said, coming up behind the man.

O’Brien turned and hitched his bag up on his shoulder. “Garak,” he said. “The station looks a right bit better than when I was last here.”

“We have had several years to continue rebuilding,” Garak replied. “Have you any other luggage for which to wait?”

“Nah, this is it. Starfleet teaches you to travel light, and even four years as a professor can’t quite override that.”

“Then if you would follow me, Professor O’Brien.”

“Garak,” O’Brien said as they started off, “I told you at the wedding you could call me Miles. It’s only right, you having married my best friend and all.”

“My apologies, Prof—Miles. Cardassians are not often in the habit of using given names in secondary relationships.”

“Like Bajorans, right?”

“Like Bajorans,” Garak confirmed.

“So I shouldn’t be asking to call you anything other than Garak,” Miles joked.

“I would prefer not.”

“Well, you can still call me Miles anyhow. I’m not Cardassian, and if I’m going to be staying at your house then having you address me like one of my students is just unsettling.”

Garak hid a small smile as he helped Miles stow his bag in the skimmer and climbed in the other side. He had no doubt that putting him in the same category as academy hopefuls would be jarring indeed.

"So,” said Miles as Garak reached to start up the vehicle, “wait.” Garak sat back, waiting, curious. “You said you’d tell me what was going on once I’m here. I’m here, and I don’t want to walk into a hospital room unprepared. What happened, Garak? Julian told me a little bit—a very little bit—about the Center and about coming back and not knowing which way was up for a while, but I figured thing were sorted after that and he just needed time.”

Garak sighed, running a pair of fingers over his ocular ridge. “Things were getting ‘sorted,’ as you say. Did Julian mention the other human?”

“Shannon? Yeah; she popped in frame a minute while we were talking. Bonny lass.”

“She is that,” Garak agreed, amused. His smile vanished again. “The Parallel Organization that ran the Center where she and Julian were held found out that they had survived the ship’s—destruction. They—Shannon and her Trill husband—had to leave rather abruptly to outrun the possibility of them being discovered here.”

Miles’ brow furrowed. “But if the Organization found one, wouldn’t they find the other? Why is Julian still here on Prime?”

“There are…safeguards in place protecting Julian that did not exist for Shannon.”

Miles stared at him a moment. “Y’know, he pegged you for a spy the first minute you met. Came up into ops crowing about how I should fit him with surveillance gadgetry in case you tried anything again.”

“So I have heard.”

“How right he was.”

Garak tilted his head in tacit acknowledgement. “However, I did not account for the Organization having another, much more dangerous accomplice in play. Shortly after Shannon’s departure, Julian received a call from his parents.”

Miles swore colorfully. “I thought they’d given up ruining things for him?”

“Miles, they are the ones who put him in the Center in the first place.”

The color drained from Miles’ already light face. “You—y’mean that his parents, _his own parents_ put him in a, a, a conversion therapy torture chamber?”

“Conversion therapy?”

Miles waved a hand. “Old Earth thing; in the 20th and 21st centuries, some loons decided that if people weren’t what they liked—at that point it was people being gay, so I guess that carried over a bit—then they could ‘convert’ them into something else. The mess was declared a crime against humanity when the Federation was created, not least because we had to own up to our own ugliness if we were going to pressure the Vulcans to stop being awful to mind-melders.”

Garak filed away the information to research further later. “Then yes, his own parents did that.”

“How’d they even get him away from you? With all your safeguards and spy tricks, it’s not like the Bashirs could outwit you. They’re not the brightest pair, common-sense-wise.”

“No,” said Garak, “it was rather more devious than that. I underestimated their cowardice, which I will not do again. They used a Cardassian doctor whom Julian knew to kidnap him.”

Miles eyed him in shock that quickly narrowed to suspicion. “Do I even want to know what happened to this doctor once you found out about it?”

Garak simply looked at him.

“Nope. No, I don’t. So his parents called again and that’s always rough for him, but I don’t think you’d call me halfway across the quadrant because his parents are jerks.”

“I would not,” Garak agreed, “save that in their general and usual abuse of him as a person, they led him to believe that their ability to find him and communicate with him in the first place was not through their own ingenuity.”

“Course not,” muttered Miles, crossing his arms. “Richard couldn’t find his way out of a paper bag on his own.”

Garak silenced his own question about what particular problem a paper bag presented for humans before continuing, “Julian intuited, and I believe he is correct, that they and the Organization have ties to Section 31.”

The interior of the skimmer went deathly quiet as the chatter of people exiting the station continued outside the windows. Miles slowly uncrossed his arms. “You think they’re backing the conversion folks?”

“I think there is some connection,” Garak said. “I do not know the extent of it and have not had the chance to make the kind of discreet inquiries required, as my attention has been singularly focused."

“On Julian,” said Miles. “God, I can only imagine how much it must have scared him to hear they were in the mix. He never was totally right after the business with Sloan, you know.”

“I am aware.”

“So I can see him being out of sorts, but you said he was in hospital.”

Garak fidgeted a moment. “He attempted suicide, Miles.”

Miles stilled. “But didn’t die,” he clarified.

Garak understood the need for such a thing to be spelled out. “He did not. Fortunately, Dr. Parmak was there and was able to prevent him from further self-injury, but he has been…withdrawn ever since.”

“And you want me to help pull him back out.”

Garak nodded. “I do not know how much of his current state is a reversion to the fear of nonhumans he was taught at the Center, but you being both his best friend and a human is an invaluable set of characteristics.”

Miles breathed out, slowly. “Well, I at least gotta see him before we go on bonding over being humans,” he said. “Let’s go.”

Garak started up the skimmer.

***

"Dr. Parmak,” said Garak as he and Miles approached Julian’s room that Parmak was just exiting.

“Councilor Garak,” Parmak said. “I was simply checking vitals. As before, he is awake but not present. Ah, Mr. O’Brien,” Parmak said, “I am truly glad you are here.”

“Dr. Parmak,” nodded O’Brien. “Good to see you again. You getting along okay?”

“Letting the red leaf tea steep,” shrugged Parmak.

“Essentially ‘one day at a time,’” Garak explained to the confused human.

“That’s good,” said Miles. “I’m—I’m so grateful—Garak told me you were the one who saved Julian from…himself.”

Parmak’s eyes clouded slightly in the still-powerful memory. “We are all glad,” he said.

“So I guess I’m here to—talk him back home?”

“You are here, as are we, for whatever it is he needs,” answered Parmak, “but I must warn you; he is essentially nonresponsive beyond basic physical needs.”

Miles nodded. “Gotta start by seeing him.”

Parmak tilted his head in the gesture Miles thought belonged to Garak only and opened the door. Julian lay in the bed on the far side of the room surrounded by several monitors beeping gently. His ever-thin frame seemed almost flat under the blankets, as though he had simply melted into the bed. Miles crossed to him and put a hand on the bed’s railings, noting the restraints leading to Julian’s wrists.

“He has been prone to pulling off our monitors and tearing out the nutrition supplements,” explained Parmak as he came to stand just behind Miles. “It has been—necessary to ensure he did not continue doing so.” The pain in his voice was clear and Miles realized that keeping Julian alive at the cost of making Julian feel like a prisoner must be tearing the other doctor apart.

“Can I untie him?” Miles asked.

Parmak hesitated before nodding. “I will ensure there are nurses ready if you need them,” he said, showing Miles where the call button was.

“I think it best if we give the two of you some time,” said Garak. His face was expressionless, but even Miles paid enough attention now to see the tension in it, the worry and sorrow tightening the ridges. “Come, Dr. Parmak.” The pair left the room and Miles took a deep breath.

“Right then,” he said, mostly to himself, as he unbound Julian’s wrists and began rubbing slow and gentle circles into the skin. Julian’s eyes opened at the stimulation.

“Hey, Julian,” Miles said softly. “It’s me—it’s Miles. I’ve finally come back to visit, buddy.”

Julian said nothing, his eyes not deviating from the ceiling, his arm still limp in Mile’s hands.

“Garak tells me you got scared pretty good by your folks and—and the Section,” Miles continued. Did he imagine the slight tightening of the skin around Julian’s blank eyes? “You’ve got him pretty worried—Garak, that is. I can’t read him nearly as well as you can and God knows he _tries_ to be as mysterious as possible, but I can tell you rattled his cage. Julian,” Miles sighed, stopping his circles to simply hold Julian’s wrist. “You rattled mine, too. When Garak told me I had to come, that you were in the hospital—well, it was only making sure Keiko and the kids were taken care of that stopped me from being on the next shuttle out.” 

No response.

Miles absently patted Julian’s hand and set it down on the bed. “I’ll be right back. Don’t do anything stupid, okay? I doubt you like being tied up any more than Parmak likes tying you up, so just hang tight for a minute.” He crossed to the door and let himself into the hallway, asking the nurses at the nearby desk where he might find Garak and Parmak.

She paged them instead of giving him directions and they soon appeared. “Yes?” said Garak, and Miles’ heart hurt at the eagerness even Garak couldn’t quite conceal.

“I think he knows _someone_ is there,” Miles said, “but I’m not sure he knows it’s me. Look, I know I was set to stay with you, but would you mind if I stayed here tonight? I think if I’m around a while, he’ll recognize that I’m—I dunno, real, or at least not just popping in briefly.”

“I think that is a good idea,” said Parmak, “and I thank you for being willing to do so. I will get you whatever you need for the stay, and of course you are then welcome at our home whenever you are ready to go there.”

Garak nodded and Miles wondered if he didn’t speak because he had nothing to say or because he didn’t trust his own voice. He had the sneaking suspicion that it might be both.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not part of the story, but I'm celebrating that the American Psychological Association just released a [statement](https://www.apa.org/about/policy/resolution-gender-identity-change-efforts.pdf) saying not only that trans folks are not, in fact, mentally ill and should not be treated as such but also that they unequivocally oppose any kind of conversion therapy because it is proven to cause harm. Small but important steps!
> 
> Also, yay Miles!


End file.
